by D. Cupples |I'd like to give Pinocchio a rest, but I can't. The Bush Administration desperately wants Congress to grant amnesty to telecommunications companies that illegally helped the Administration spy on Americans. The Administration claims that domestic spying started after September 11, 2001, but evidence suggests that it was in the works at least six months before the attacks. Given the timing, was domestic spying really about national security?
This issue is bigger than whether government staff listens to Dick and Jane's nightly phone sex. It's about potential law breaking, lying, and corruption. The New York Times reports:
"For months, the Bush administration has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program....
"But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. Worried about possible privacy violations or public relations problems, company executives declined to help the operation, which has not been previously disclosed.
"In a separate N.S.A. project, executives at a Denver phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them." (NY Times)
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell argued:
"'The intelligence community cannot go it alone,” Mike McConnel... wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed article Monday urging Congress to pass the immunity provision. 'Those in the private sector who stand by us in times of national security emergencies deserve thanks, not lawsuits.'"
What a quaint argument. It's also specious, given the source. McConnell twice gave questionable testimony to Congress when lobbying for greater domestic-spying powers. In one case, McConnell had to retract his statements to Congress. Is McConnell even credible?
New Attorney General Michael Mukasy argued in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that telecom companies would be less willing to help the government spy on Americans if they didn't have legal immunity.
Of course they would, and that's as it should be. Telecoms have teams of lawyers who understand our constitution. Given that our current Administration has so little regard for constitutional rights of any sort, perhaps our nation needs private companies -- that fear the threat of legitimate lawsuits -- to act as a check against executive-branch abuses. God knows that much of Congress has done a questionable job.
Isn't it interesting that Mukasey used an op-ed to influence public opinion in an Administration-friendly way after claiming during Senate confirmation hearings that he would be independent of the Administration and untainted by politics when upholding the law?
So desperate are Administration officials that they even argue that domestic spying has helped them in drug-trafficking cases since the 1990s. (NY Times) Really? Then why is it so easy for 10-year-old school kids to get pot, coke, and a slew of designer drugs -- much easier than when President Reagan's wife declared war on drugs when I was growing up?
The "War on Drugs" has been lost many times. Thus, the Bush Administration cannot validly claim that the ends (stopping drug flow) have justified the means (increased domestic spying).
The big question: why does the Bush Administration so ardently support telecom amnesty? With my mind-reading skills vacationing in the Florida Keys, I don't know. But I can identify the likely results of amnesty and connect some dots.
Amnesty would benefit two groups: 1) the Bush Administration, by keeping evidence of wrongdoing out of the public's view; and 2) telecom companies (many of whom donated to President Bush), by protecting them from paying out on lawsuits -- even if they did break our laws.
In 1971, most Americans had no clue that their president (or his associates) had resorted to spying, break-ins and wiretapping to combat political enemies -- until that fateful day in 1972, when a security guard caught five men trying to break into (and tap the phones in) an office belonging to people that President Nixon considered political enemies. (See Watergate overview.)
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Related BN-Politics' Posts:
* Domestic Spying & Telecom Amnesty: the Bigger Issues
* Intelligence Chief Mislead Public Again
* Bush & Senate Republicans Protect Telecoms, Soil Privacy Rights
* U.S. Intel Chief Made False Statements re: Domestic Spying
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