Dec 20 2005
Clarification on Spying
With all uproar over the revelations that the President authorized illegal wiretaps, the right wing pundits are out in force defending him today on the cable news channels.
One thing they keep repeating ad nauseum is the President has the right and the obligation to spy on terrorists, so this isn’t really a big deal. For some reason, the counterpundits haven’t responded to that in one important way that I think a lot of people are missing.
The President DOES, via the executive branch of the federal government, have the right and in fact the responsibility to spy on potential terrorists both within the United States and abroad. The pundits and the President, Vice President, Condi Rice, etc.. are all correct on that point.
What we’re talking about here though is not just spying. It’s domestic spying without a warrant, without oversight, and without legal justification. They’re basically saying, “We don’t need to prove to a judge that our wiretap is warranted, so screw off.” and that’s what the real issue here is.
The President himself went on and on yesterday about how spying has stopped terrorist plots in the past four years, and that might be true. But he and his administration are purposely trying to confuse the issue by interjecting the legal uses of spying in their defense of these revealed illegal spying techniques. It’s a clever piece of political misdirection on their part and the right wing pundits have taken up the same tactic in their defense of the administration, but as with so many other things regarding this administration, it’s not the entire truth. Some might even call it lying.
Spying is fine. Spying without a warrant or legal oversight isn’t.
The President and his administration might not want to recognize the distinction between the two, or they are choosing to continue charging ahead with the “King George makes it so” attitude, but it’s an incredibely important distinction to be aware of if we’re going to have a decent debate about this issue.
Electronic Surveillance:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/36/subchapters/i/toc.html
Here is a good article explaining the law:
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200512190859.asp
From the second link:
So New York Times writer James Risen will sell his book, the Times will increase circulation, politicians will beat their breasts and send out fundraising letters, and who will pay in the end?
Sadly, the American people. :(
First off, James Robbins isn’t a lawyer although he tries in that article to defend the administration wiretaps in a schollarly legal manner. His major point of the article seems to be:
I think that argument, and the entire “We’re helping the terrorists by talking about this..” line of reasoning is completly illogical. Let me explain why..
The ‘terrorists’ and other bad guys are well aware of the laws on the books which permit the use of wiretaps against them in the United States and abroad. It’s also well accepted that the warrants that have been needed to get those wiretaps are very easy to get, and can be issued days after the wiretap has been started, making speed a non-factor really. If the government wants to spy on you as a bad guy, they’re going to spy on you. I really don’t think the bad guys are walking around having conversations on open lines saying to themselves, “Man, I sure feel safe because I know that the government can start spying on me right now if they want and bother with the warrant to justify it on Friday.”
We’ve had a very public policy about spying. I don’t think it hurts national security or helps the bad guys to let them know we can spy on them without a warrant even though we’ve always been able to spy on them without a warrant for days.
Like I said above, the issue here isn’t spying, it’s spying without justification and valid oversight.
Regarding the theory of ‘well the lefty NYT is only publishing this to boost circulation and HURT the President’; yeah, thats totally the issue. In fact, I think newspapers and other journalists should just vette every disparaging story to the administration through the administration first. Especially in election years.
Oops.
I give up … I’m never going to try to articulate the other side of an argument on this blog again.
No! You can’t not argue. The discourse between the two of you is what will turn this blog into a nationally syndicated talk show. If you go, then we all have to go.
You should save these remarks for Festivus and The List of Grievances :)
Interesting related thread on slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171761&cid=14304217
Remember when we were talking about this? Well, he finally decided to cross the final line.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/485561p-408789c.html
Seriously, opening the mail! WTF! What the hell is he thinking? I mean seriously. You know what, F$*# it, I’m outta here.