An issue that has been near to my heart is finally on the front pages of the NY Times. Let me summarize. The NSA, which has traditionally been assigned to non-human intelligence gathering against non-US citizens, has since 2002 been authorized to spy on American citizens without a warrant. Also, there are concerns that the government’s secret spying court, FISA, could end up hearing requests for secret intelligence warrants based on this non-refereed evidence from the NSA. The order changing this policy came from the President himself, and some have called it “The President’s Program”, implying that it was ultimately his idea. Bush has reauthorized the order 36 times since then, meaning that it has no doubt been used. Most notably, this act allows the NSA to monitor international telephone calls, e-mails and other communications between people in the United States and those overseas. That means I am a potential target. Every time I make a post on this website, every time I write an email, everytime I make a phone call back home I am subject to potential unwarranted, unchecked search.
But this isn’t new; I still fondly recall the high school debate case that Don Pogreba and I wrote about six years ago on the potential for abuse of FISA. Certainly the 2002 order is new, but the potential has always existed for rampant abuse. I honestly never thought that if it were being abused that it would become public. And if Don and I knew about FISA you can sure bet that a lot more government officials knew about it than are letting on. But we let them parade around on television saying that this is “big brother run amok” or that “this is a wake-up call” or “the most significant thing in my 12 years”. It is clear that this revelation has already had an effect. It stopped the provisions of the Patriot Act from being re-approved:
“There is no doubt that this is inappropriate,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who favored the Patriot Act renewal but said the NSA issue provided valuable ammunition for its opponents.
The response from bloggers has been tremendous. Just look at the front page of the Huffington Post which has gathered many of the relevant opinions together and is currently displaying them under the title “Bloggers on Govt. Spying”.
If this is what it takes to get Bush’s style of government discredited, then so be it. I would have thought that all the other mistakes would have been enough, but maybe it takes the specter of domestic spying to ring the death knell for the neoconservative agenda. If, at this point, Bush’s ideology lives on it will be a dramatic mistake of history akin to the continued adherents to fascism and stalinism. Let us finally say that neoconservatism belongs forever to the category of discredited political philosophies.
By way of post script, have you ever noticed how the only person who could be more wrong for humanity than George W. Bush is Trent Lott? I thought we had heard the last of him when he advocated Dixiecrat thinking 60 years after it had been discredited, and he subsequently lost his leadership roll in the Senate. And let’s face it, you have to do something abjectly embarassing for your party to lose your leadership in congress as certain other contemporary clingers-on have shown. But Lott has been on the wrong side of every major issue since euphemizing segregation as a way to avoid all those “problems”. Most recently, he has come out with this gem:
“I don’t agree with the libertarians,” said Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). “I want my security first. I’ll deal with all the details after that.” [in reference to the revelation of domestic spying]
Because, as Trent Lott has reminded us, only libertarians could possible want their constitutional rights, that security and liberty must be blindly opposed and we must take sides, and that the details of a policy which spies on people like me aren’t worth considering in the face of the imminent threat that I pose to national security. My thanks go out to the voters of Mississippi for allowing us to continue to feast on the cornucopia of wisdom that is Trent Lott.
Last 5 posts by Dan
- US and North Korea Act Like Children - July 3rd, 2006
- Has Anyone Noticed Israel is at War? - June 29th, 2006
- Burns:Promising More Veterans - February 4th, 2006
- Admin Expands Intelligence War on Me - December 18th, 2005
- Bob Woodward, Valerie Wilson, and Nostalgia for Watergate - November 16th, 2005
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