Two issues concern me about media coverage re: the new law that expanded the Bush Administration's domestic-spying powers:
1) how the press assigned blame, and
2) that the press talked little about who'll be doing the spying.
A Washington Post editorial blamed the "Democratic led Congress" for passing the bill that Bush signed into law on Sunday. In a piece called Who's Afraid of George Bush? Dam Froomkin cited multiple papers that took similar stances: e.g., an L.A. Times editorial that said:
"That this flawed legislation was approved by a Democratic Congress is a reminder that many in the party are still fearful that they will be labeled 'soft on terror.'"
Good point, but why hurl some blame at the people who used that McCarthy-esque tactic? The press should help stop this nonsense by loudly condemning the President and Republicans every time they scream "soft-on-terror" -- and tossing aged tomatoes at the stage.
Second, commentators should take care to cast blame in a numerically accurate way. Most Dems voted against Bush's bill:
Dems Against Dems For
House 181 41 (roll call vote)
Senate 27 16 (roll call vote)
[Note: I removed the two "Independents" from the tally: Sanders (VT), who voted against the bill; and Lieberman (Conn.), who voted for it.]
Furthermore, the list of Senate Dems who voted against the bill includes a healthy number of senior members and committee leaders:
| Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Brown (D-OH) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Clinton (D-NY) Dodd (D-CT) |
Durbin (D-IL) |
Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR) |
The House list is longer, so I'll leave it to you to look over the roll call vote.
As I said before, Democrats aren't usually given to goose-stepping. Don't merely get used to that fact: embrace it. Remember, just four little-old years ago, goose-step voting propelled us into Iraq (abetted by the media's fear of questioning the President).
Moving on to the second troubling issue: who will be doing the actual eavesdropping? According to researcher/author R.J. Hillhouse, our nation's intelligence work is largely done by private contractors (see The Nation/Truthout and Washington Post). Hillhouse stated the following:
* 70% of the intelligence budget goes to private contractors
* Effective control of the NSA is with private contractors
* Contractors make up 51% of the Defense Intelligence Agency's staff
* 50-60% of CIA's Clandestine Service's intelligence gatherers are contractors.
This is troubling, partly because our nation hasn't had good luck with contractors (See BN-Politics' pieces about defense, healthcare, and Energy-Department contractors). Below are a few disconcerting paragraphs from Hillhouse, which gives more cause for concern:
"The President's Daily Brief is an aggregate of the most critical analyses from the sixteen agencies that make up the intelligence community. Staff at the ODNI sift through reports to complete the PDB, which is presented to the President every day as the US government's most accurate and most current assessment of priority national security issues. It was the PDB that warned on August 6, 2001, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.'
"It's true that the government pays for and signs off on the assessment, but much of the analysis and even some of the underlying intelligence-gathering is corporate. Knowledgeable members of the intelligence community tell me that corporations have so penetrated the intelligence community that it's impossible to distinguish their work from the government's....
"Concerned members of the intelligence community have told me that if a corporation wanted to insert items favorable to itself or its clients into the PDB to influence the US national security agenda, at this time it would be virtually undetectable. These companies have analysts and often intelligence collectors spread throughout the system and have the access to introduce intelligence into the system.
"To take an extreme example, a company frustrated with a government that's hampering its business or the business of one of its clients could introduce or spin intelligence on that government's suspected collaboration with terrorists in order to get the White House's attention and potentially shape national policy." (Truthout)
In short, conflicts of interest may arise: loyalty to nation versus loyalty to bottom line. Do you think every contractor with access to our nation's intelligence agencies will be a "good citizen"?
A single, major betrayal could bring severe consequences down upon this nation. That's why I hope the media will focus a bit more on this issue.
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