Testing, Testing, Is This Mike On?
There seems to be a growing (deliberate?) unwillingness to talk about the NSA eavesdropping program in sensible terms. To wit, there are still people talking about 72 hours and warrants for wiretaps when clearly the issue is a data-mining or packet-sniffing program. It is ironic that on the same day that I felt compelled to write in to local progressive rag the Austin Chronicle for running a Michael Ventura piece this week that manages to go on for two full pages about the illegality of the NSA program without even mentioning data-mining, I noticed our good friend the MinuteMan covering the same angle:
…[T]o explain why warrants wouldn’t work would require a fairly detailed description of “The Program”, which some folks considered a bad idea.
Well, let me take a turn and answer a question with a question or three:
(1) Why did Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intel Committee, write this last December in response to the Times story?
Dec 21, 2005
Washington , D.C. – Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, today issued the following statement:
“As the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.
(2) Why did Sen. Rockefeller, ranking Dem on the Senate Intel Committee, hand-write a letter to Cheney and his files about The Program rather than laugh out loud, exclaim “There is nothing new here!”, and demand that the full Senate Intel Committee be brought into the briefings?
(3) Why did the Time sit on this story for a year after being told there were sensitive national security concerns? Why did they write (Risen/Lichtblau, Dec 16, 2005) that:
The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
Possible unifying answer – Harman, Rockefeller, and the editors of the Times are all dupes. Uh huh. Another possible answer is, they know enough about this program to know that there might still be some secrets there.
Mr. Maguire’s post is a response to this insipid inquiry from Mr. Duncan Black:
Explain to me, in your best wingnutnese, how exactly it damages national security to reveal the fact that we spy on people without secret warrants instead of the fact that we spy on people with secret warrants?
Rather than regurgitate Tom’s post, which is worthy of perusal in its entirety (along with the supporting links), here’s my short answer to Atrios:How stupid do you think we are? Of course, al-Qaeda knows we spy on them…that’s not the point, and I doubt very seriously they even care about the ‘warrant’ controversy – it’s the technique!
I don’t think there is even a sliver of doubt anymore that the reason FISA was bypassed was because, to put it as plainly as possible, we are using techonologic methods to collect and analyze mass quantities of data in search of suspicious patterns. Let us, then, speak no more of wiretaps and 72-hour waiting periods. That’s not the issue.
If the argument is that the president broke the law, a case can be made, as I’ve admitted on numerous occasions. If the argument is that he broke the law because he just couldn’t be bothered to seek out stuff like warrants, because, like, that’s such a pain, man (remember, we’re talking about the president whose entire time in office has been defined by the War on Terror), then you’ll have to try to convince someone else, because I would never in my life believe that this president is that lackadaisical about our national security. It just doesn’t fit.
Wake up – it’s the technology, people…it’s not even an open question…
What seems unspoken just under the surface of such claims is that Democrats are so opposed to the idea of national security, and so rabidly anti-Bush, that they would oppose an initiative like this, with the potential good it could do, simply on partisan political terms. At least, that’s the conclusion to which it was drawn out in the comments on one of your posts, when I put it to the question.
I’ll say it again: If the program is so effective and efficient, why not ask Congress to change laws so that it’s compliant?
Fargus – I won’t pretend to have the answer to that – but dmac, I believe it was, replied to your query by pointing out what’s going on with the Patriot Act – it does, indeed, lend itself to an interpretation that the Democratic leadership is so opposed to Bush that they are jeopardizing our national security, and that’s exactly the point Joe Klein was making in the Time piece…I think it’s a bit of an unfair standard to say we can’t wonder about that, yet it’s okay for the Left to accuse Bush of dictatorial tendencies…just to be clear, I don’t think the Democrats are INTENTIONALLY doing that, just that some (not all) have been blinded by their Bush hatred…
On a related note, saw Rep. Harman on the Fox Sunday morning show, and she was asked specifically about her Dec. 21st letter. She did say that, while in retrospect, she felt that their WH briefings (with the Intelligence Commitee) were too vague at times regarding the outlines of the programs – nevertheless, she still felt strongly that the leaks themselves had severely hampered the intelligence program’s effectiveness, perhaps critically.
She also reiterated that the leakers themselves should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, no matter where the investigation leads. This could be why we’ve heard nothing from Senator Joe (The Bloviator) Biden or Chucky Schumer recently on this issue.
I don’t know how many Democrats were briefed but I think the evidence is clear that those that were understood what was being done, why it was different than run-of-the-mill wiretaps, and what was at stake. I, personally, take their silence to mean that they either approved of what was being done, or did so with some reservations that were not significant enough to warrant broader (public) disclosure and debate.
This whole thing is going to end up with an explanation, in full public view, of the methods used to collect this data. Its going to be done to quiet the critics. The critics will not be quieted. Instead, the behavior patterns of those being monitored will change. I’m sure that has already happened to some extent. In some ways, that’s a good thing. It has hindered their efforts. In other, more important ways, its extremely bad. Threats will vanish from our radar screens. The more this program is talked about, the more damage is being done.
Also, changing the law would only bring more information into public view. A debate on the floor of congress would begin. Congressmen, pro and con, would talk in detail about what the proposed program will allow.
The reason behind a lot of the secrecy in the intelligence world is to protect sources and methodology. We have RUINED both sources and methodology with this faux controversy.
I’m usually willing to give opponents (political opponents, not the enemy) the benefit of the doubt. Willing to engage in a little back and fourth and concede a point or two to them if they’re willing to do the same with me. But revealing sources and methodology in the nation’s most important newspaper pushes me over the edge. I cannot grant an opponent even a single point when the issues being discussed should not even be in public view.
Mark, you’ve talked about making this program legal if its not legal. Well, that’s kind of pointless now. This kind of program lost its effectiveness the day that story came out. A new program needs to be developed, probably based on wide-scope data mining of both classified materials an open-source material. But if the program is developed, for God’s sake, WE CAN’T KNOW ABOUT IT! But whatever we do next, our enemy knows much better our capabilites. Telephone communication is probably out the window for them.
Too Many Steves – Rep. Harman said that only the members of the House and Senate Intelligence cmte’s were briefed, and that they were told not to divulge the contents of the briefings themselves (which is the MO for all intelligence briefings). They were also asked for any concerns or objections that they may have had regarding the programs that were outlined for them, and that no significant disagreements were raised at that time.
While honorable members like Harman can say that they didn’t know the full extent of the programs (surely a possibility), nevertheless the members who attended these sessions are not exactly jumping out of their seats these days with accusations of “Imperial Powers,” and other inane references to Orwellian/Machiavellian actions on the part of the WH – a telling sign.
Now I’m going to wait for the inevitable Peter backlash accusing Bush of being the greatest threat to the Free World as it exists today. You know, just throw up enough stuff on the wall and see what sticks.
Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think Bush is the greatest threat to the free world. I think Iran, North Korea, stateless terrorism, and global warming are the greatest threats to the free world.
I think George Bush is an incompetent, inarticulate, close-minded President who will go down in history as being off the charts awful. But I think the free world will survive despite him.
peter, you had me until global warming…
…on a bit of a tangent: I was thinking of global warming the other day, and how it is such a politically charged concept, and it made me wish there was such a thing as a truly objective source of information that would cut through the partisan nonsense once and for all and examine the evidence both for and against global warming – and then I woke up. Of course, that’s wishing for too much. The best we can do is look at peer-reviewed scientific literature, and I confess to not having that much time on my hands.
I suppose Wikipedia was supposed to be one such source of objective information – but we all know how THAT turned out…
Well, I certainly hope that I’m wrong about global warming — but it sounds like the sort of thing which you won’t know for sure until it’s too late, and then it’s irreversible — maybe not in my lifetime, but in my daughter’s –
Yes, that’s exactly what bothers me…
On global warming…
It’s worth considering how much faith you have in mankind, and our ability to handle whatever comes.
The climate always changes, new diseases frequently arise, natural disasters occur every month — in all cases, our ability to handle new threats and new disasters has dramatically increased in the last century, beyond the possibility of anyone a hundred years ago to have believed.
Unless you think we’ve suddenly lost the very adaptability and ingenuity that has brought us this far against far greater hurdles than a 1 degree rise in average temperature over the course of a century, it’s hard to see a reason to panic.
Being a once long – time member of both The Sierra Club and The Wildlife Federation, I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that they need the global warming meme desperately to stay relevant, if only to help keep their operations flush with cash contributions.
I’m not saying it isn’t a development that needs to be addressed, but that these operations will not brook any alternatives (that is, to Kyoto) that may accomplish the job more effectively, and with far less damage to the developed world’s economies.