Holte's corner

High Crimes and Snooping

Just when I thought the guy was about to moderate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701005.html

Bush claims he bypassed FISA in 2002 because FISA was not designed to
deal with terrorists operating under cover of US citizenship.
However, this is a lie buried within a lie. Even if his statement
were true, it is a lie because Congress was ready and willing to give
him all the authority he wanted and did so with the Patriot Act 1.
That he ignored the FISA rules, pre-patriot act and post patriot act
tells us that this was an excuse not a reason. But the statement
itself is a lie, because FISA rules are very general, the courts are
secret, they almost never say no, and they allow one to ask for
permission after the taps. Which means he could have done his general
surveillance, sought permission only when something of interest
popped up, and only kept those recordings that were of "interest".

But aside from all that, one little fact shouldn't go unnoticed, all
this is illegal. Snooping on people isn't protecting security, it is threatening our security. The DISA act didn't make the courts optional. To
spy on citizens the US has to go through the courts. They can't just
flout the law and then claim executive privelage. That isn't
democracy that is rule by decree. Worse, stamping it with layers of
secrecy and trying to make leaks of the information subject to the
secrecy act just shows how far down the road towards dictatorship we
really are.

There should be an exemption to the secrecy act for whistle blowing about acts of high crimes and misdemeaners. If one is going to break the law, one should be prepared to pay the price, not enjoy impunity. I've been reluctant to call
for "impeachment" -- but after hearing this, this is not an issue for
a "special prosecutor". It is an issue for a "special prosecutor" and
an impeachment hearing. Bush should be impeached, tried and removed
from office for this.

But to get that we have to survive the next election. Bush has made
this an issue in an effort to divide and rule. He knows that this
revelation sabotages the effort to get a new Patriot act passed. He
isn't interested in any Patriot act -- he wants unlimited authority
and a rubber stamp congress. He wants what Augustus wanted. Will he
get it? Better believe THE issue in the next election will
be "national security" and those who stand against him will be
labelled as traitors. The US is looking more and more like that third
world Country I've come to know and love; Argentina.

I'm certain that this is going to escalate. I don't think Bush even
realizes (or cares) where this is heading. He wants a showdown to
take attention off of investigations into corruption and malfeasance
of his leutenants and to give the Republicans an issue to run on in
2006. But this is a challenge to American Liberty, to the survival of
the Republic, and to Democratic rule -- and I don't think this fight
can do anything but deteriate unless Republicans start showing some
backbone and love of their Constitution and say "Mr. President this
is wrong. You have to obey the law."

Other References for todays article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700018.html

We don't know which secret program the President was talking about, we know it was NSA, as an IT person and someone generally familiar with the outlines
(what is in the public arena) of NSA[I lived down the road from it for 10 years], it had something to do with compututerized surveillance. He probably had his listening devices searching for key words and such. We've all suspected this activity for years. We can continue to suspect it. The President has made it
clear that he doesn't care if he was breaking the law. In that he is continuing a tradition of Presidents or of their bureaucrats at lower levels.

The Government never really stopped spying on us, except
maybe the brief period between 1974 and 1991 -- and I doubt it really
stopped then. I once was told that during that period NSA would get
the Canadians to spy on us and in return spy on the Canadians for
them. I've also read allegations that the real reasons why 9/11
occured is that the CIA and the FBI weren't talking to each other. If
so that's not new either. I have some books on the History of the CIA
and FBI, they have been rivals from the beginning. Wild Bill Donovan
started as a J. Edgar ally and became an enemy. This is nothing new.

He is not protecting our security, he is
threatening our security. Snooping leads to secret evidence, secret evidence is by it's nature sloppy, imprecise, and often false. Secret evidence gets the wrong people locked up, the wrong people killed, and leads directly to tyranny. There is a joke in todays post:

"One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in his desk and called off the search. 'But, Comrade Stalin," stammered Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it.'"

Posted by cholte at December 18, 2005 07:02 PM