The Spying Program: Deal Or No Deal?
(CBS)
The continuing saga over the legal legitimacy of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program is a story that has been underreported recently. And that’s probably because for a few months anyway there seemed to be harmony between the branches over the extent to which the White House could undertake its spy program with and without Congressional oversight.
In January, the White House relented to legal and political pressure and agreed to again go through the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts for permission to wiretap people believed to be terror suspects (or people at least believed to be talking to people believed to be terror suspects). Even though the executive branch was squirrelly about sharing the details of its deal with the FISA Court, even though Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales initially stonewalled, the legislators seemed mostly satisfied that at least the court would provide some sort of oversight to check the worst excesses of the program.
Now let’s fast forward to Tuesday. Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that even though the January “deal” is in place it is not necessarily binding on the President; that Mr. Bush still retains the constitutional power and authority to circumvent the January deal and authorize warrantless spying without FISA court involvement. It wasn’t just the extraordinarily broad reading of the President’s power that had tongues wagging, it was the fact that McConnell delivered the news while seeking from Congress broader powers under the FISA law.
You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that a “deal” that doesn’t bind one party isn’t really a “deal” at all. And you don’t need to be a therapist to understand why several Committee members, especially the Democrats, seemed so frustrated listening to McConnell’s spiel. On the one hand, the executive branch wants new powers and authorities from Congress. On the other hand, it says that it is not necessarily beholden to the powers it already has from the legislators. Doesn’t anyone read ”Getting to Yes” anymore?
The Democrats on the Committee—and elsewhere in Congress- already are angry about the way their requests for information from executive branch agencies and departments have been handled. The New York Times quoted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) Wednesday during the hearing: “To this day, we have never been provided the presidential authorization that cleared that program to go or the attorney general. Where’s the transparency as to the presidential authorizations for this closed program? That’s a pretty big ‘we’re not going to tell you’ in this new atmosphere of trust we’re trying to build.”
And so a story that has been largely dormant the past few months is beginning to emerge again onto the radar screen. Eventually, it seems to me, the United States Supreme Court is going to have decide whether the President truly does have the astonishingly broad constitutional wiretap powers that his lawyers claim he has. With another few hearings like the one we saw yesterday, that court fight may be closer to becoming reality than we might have thought last week.
I know 2,752 reasons why only one man should have the war powers of the President of the United States. Shame on this government if another World Trade Center-type of attack occurs in this country because someone was hesitant about a wiretap on people who sincerely believe they are engaged in a divinely-supported war.
This is no longer just a law enforcement issue. Those who considered terrorism just a law enforcement issue prior to 9/11 were the causes of al Qaeda's success. We should have changed our view when Ramzi Yousef truck bombed the World Trade Center.
This is a different age. We willingly give up privacy rights every day for a worthy reason. We are fine with being searched if we attempt to enter airport security. We are fine with having video cameras covering our every movement even at the most insignificant place like the convenience store down the street. And, if you are communicating with suspected terrorists, tnen you have lost your right to privacy, also.
It was a lawyer from Arkansas and an FBI and CIA encumbered with post-Watergate Congressional intelligence oversight laws that allowed bin Laden to get to where he is today. Shame on us all if we allow another attack to happen again.
The 2,752 lost at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 will not have died in vain if only we have learned one bitter lesson: bin Laden believes he is at war. We better believe we are, too.
Eric
:)
Eric