Time heals. It also induces complacency. On Election Day 2004, 19 percent of Americans thought that terrorism was the most important issue we faced; in a recent poll, only five percent thought so. We do feel safer, after all.
Complacency isn’t confined to the general public. Joseph J. Ellis, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College and the author of “His Excellency: George Washington” recently asked whether 9/11 deserves the historical significance it’s achieved. Here’s his answer:
. . . where does Sept. 11 rank in the grand sweep of American history as a threat to national security? By my calculations it does not make the top tier of the list, which requires the threat to pose a serious challenge to the survival of the American republic.
Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.
Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.
Of course, as the threat from terrorism recedes in the public’s mind, it’s replaced by the concern that civil liberties are threatened by actions taken to prevent further terrorist attacks:
In the summer of 2002, according to a CNN survey, only 11 percent of Americans thought President Bush’s war on terrorism had restricted civil liberties too much. Now, 38 percent say so—double the number that say he should restrict them more. In December 2001, 64 percent of Americans thought a wartime president should “have the authority to make changes in the rights usually guaranteed by the Constitution.” This month, it was only 36 percent.
This swing in the security-versus-freedom pendulum stemming from a perceived lessening of the terrorist threat isn’t surprising; in fact, it’s exactly what should be expected. Memories of 9/11 have faded, so much so that the public now chooses to ignore a warning from Bin Laden that al-Qaeda is preparing a new attack on America:
The new operations of al-Qaida has not happened not because we could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared and you’ll see it in your homeland very soon . . .
This warning didn’t prevent Glenn Greenwald from issuing this specious comparison in a recent post:
The total number of Americans killed by Islamic terrorists in the last 5 years—or 10 years—or 20 years—or ever—is roughly 3,500, the same number of deaths by suicide which occur in this country every month.
If, in addition to looking backwards instead of forwards, the severity of the terrorist threat is judged by making a quantitative comparison such as this one, the following conclusion logically follows:
This is the overarching threat around which we are constructing our entire foreign policy, changing the basic principles of our government, and fundamentally altering both our behavior in the world and the way in which we are perceived.
Foremost among those “basic principles of our government” to which Greenwald refers are the NSA’s surveillance activities.
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In an earlier post, I gave credit to Greenwald for uncovering the fact that the Bush Administration didn’t endorse legislation introduced by Senator DeWine in June 2002 that proposed substituting “reasonable suspicion†for “probable cause†as the standard for obtaining a FISA warrant. I agreed with him that the Administration should have welcomed the proposed change to FISA. I asked what issues prevented the Administration from supporting the proposed legislation.
Subsequently, I cited the opening statement of James Baker, the Justice Department’s Counsel for Intelligence Policy before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 31, 2002, and averred that the Administration was concerned that courts would decide that the “reasonable suspicion†standard was unconstitutional, and, should that occur, investigations and prosecutions using that standard would be put at risk:
- The Department’s Office of Legal Counsel is analyzing relevant Supreme Court precedent to determine whether a “reasonable suspicion†standard for electronic surveillance and physical searches would, in the FISA context, pass constitutional muster. The issue is not clear cut, and the review process must be thorough because of what is at stake, namely, our ability to conduct investigations that are vital to protecting national security. If we err in our analysis and courts were ultimately to find a “reasonable suspicion†standard unconstitutional, we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions. [emphasis added]
What has been lacking in the debate over the legality and constitutionality of warrentless surveillance is context. In late 2001 and early 2002, 9/11 and the anthrax scare were fresh in everyone’s mind, not the least of which in the Bush Administration’s. It was at this time that the Administration decided to initiate its end-around on the FISA Court. Why was this course of action chosen? Was it part of a nefarious scheme to concentrate power in the hands of the Executive Branch, or were there problems, at a time when there was considerable fear of another terrorist attack, with FISA and the FISA Court that couldn’t be fixed quickly?
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The FISA Court was an object of much attention in 2002.
The Court’s May 17 Ruling —In the first ruling it ever published (in August 2002), the Court determined that portions of guidelines issued earlier in the year by Attorney General Ashcroft on intelligence sharing violated federal law. The court said the policy established by Ashcroft, who cited the Patriot Act for his authority, shortcut the Constitution and FISA by replacing existing surveillance requirements used for criminal prosecution with the more lax FISA requirements.
In its ruling, the court cited the constitutional right to privacy of U.S. citizens, saying Ashcroft’s policy “was not reasonably designed or ‘consistent with the need of the United States to obtain, produce, or disseminate foreign intelligence information’” as mandated by FISA. Prior to the Patriot Act, FISA had been interpreted by attorneys general and the FISA Court as having mandated a “wall” between the criminal and intelligence sides of an investigation. In this ruling, the FISA Court felt that the new procedures issued by the attorney general had illegally dismantled that wall.
The FISA Court also said the powers given to criminal investigators by Ashcroft might allow the government to illegally use intelligence information in criminal cases. It noted that the Department of Justice, under the Clinton administration, had abused the FISA process and misled the court at least 12 times and that the government had admitted FBI officials had provided erroneous information to the court on more than 75 requests for warrants and wiretaps.
The Court of Review’s November 1 Ruling—Later in 2002, the FISA Court of Review, convening for the first time ever, overturned the lower FISA Court’s ruling:
We think that the FISA as passed by Congress in 1978 clearly did not preclude or limit the government’s use or proposed use of foreign intelligence information, which included evidence of certain kinds of criminal activity, in a criminal prosecution.
The Court of Review noted that the idea of the “wall” came from a 1995 Attorney General directive entitled “Procedures for Contacts Between the FBI and the Criminal Division Concerning Foreign Intelligence and Foreign Counterintelligence Investigations,” and not from FISA law.
On September 10—the day after the Court of Review began its review of the lower Court’s ruling, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing.
The USA Patriot Act in Practice: Shedding Light on the FISA Process
In his opening statement, Chairman Leahy (D-Vermont) soundly criticized the FISA process, singling out the FBI for special condemnation:
. . . before the 9/11 attacks, we discovered [in the course of earlier hearings] the FISA process was strapped by unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and riddled with inefficiencies. Some of these inefficiencies had to do with legal issues that we addressed in the USA PATRIOT Act, but many did not. They related to the same problems that this Committee has seen time and time again at the FBI: poor communication, inadequate training, a turf mentality, and cumbersome information management and computer systems that date back to the Dark Ages. Even a cursory read of the unanimous [May 17th] FISA Court opinion bears that out. The FISA Court was not frustrated with the state of the law. Instead, all seven Federal judges were concerned about a track record marred by a series of inaccurate affidavits that even caused them to take the extraordinary step of banning an agent from appearing before the court in the
future. I continue to support Director Mueller’s efforts to address these problems, but the going will not be easy.
Leahy closed his statement pessimistically, drawing attention to the problems posed by secrecy:
. . . I have become more convinced there is no magic elixir to fix these problems. It is tempting to suggest further weakening of the FISA statute to respond to specific cases, but the truth is that the more difficult systemic problems must be properly addressed in order to combat terrorism effectively. Furthermore, given the secrecy of the FISA process and the law relating to the FISA, it is impossible to intelligently address the problems that do exist without risking doing more harm than good.
Senator Hatch (R-Utah) spoke of the FISA Court’s decision that had just entered the appeal process:
In March of this year, the Justice Department adopted revised guidelines governing intelligence sharing and criminal prosecutions, and then sought FISA Court approval for these revisions. The FISA Court approved most of these modifications but rejected a portion dealing with the role of criminal prosecutors in providing advice and direction to the intelligence investigations.
Miscommunication between the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General was the focus of Senator Specter’s (R-Pennsylvania) remarks:
It would have seemed logical that, after the extensive examination of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the Wen Ho Lee case, there would have been an understanding of its application. And there was a miscommunication at the highest levels between the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General, which we corrected by statute . . . suffice it to say that the Department of Justice was on notice as to what FISA required.
The failure to obtain a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for Zacarias Moussaoui was a matter of enormous importance . . . And as we are working now to prevent another 9/11, there is a continuing question as to whether the FBI is properly applying a probable cause standard in seeking a FISA warrant.
Reviewing the record, Specter reached the following conclusion:
. . . we are dealing with a situation where, by all indications, the FBI and the Department of Justice are not being as aggressive as they should be and can be with an appropriate standard for probable cause.
I’m in complete agreement with Greenwald that Senator DeWine (R-Ohio), who introduced the bill that substituted “reasonable suspicion†for “probable cause†as the standard for obtaining a FISA warrant, assumed that the Administration was bound by FISA in its eavesdropping activities. As Greenwald said: “why else would he bother to liberalize FISA unless he thought that it actually governed what the Administration could and could not do?”
Thus, there’s no reason to believe DeWine was acting as an Administration mouthpiece when he said this at the Judiciary Committee hearing:
. . . unless we fully understand how the FISA law is being interpreted by the court, this Congress cannot fulfill its constitutional duty—its constitutional duty of oversight and its constitutional duty after we pass a law to see how it is working, to see how the courts are interpreting it, and then to make a rational public policy decision as to whether or not that law should be changed.
With only two written FISA decisions—that I am aware of, at least—in 24 years, that is impossible to know. It is impossible for this Congress to know how the law is being interpreted, and that has been true for previous Congresses.
Now, some of us believe, although we certainly cannot prove it because of the fact of the secrecy involved, that the interpretation of the original FISA law has become tighter and tighter and more burdensome and more burdensome over the years and that the relationship between the Justice Department and the courts . . . has resulted in an interpretation of a law that has been very strict. I believe that this interpretation may have been stricter than Congress may have intended it or that maybe Congress would have allowed to continue. [emphasis added]
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The Senate hearing informs us that (1) the FISA process had always been shrouded in secrecy, (2) the process was in serious need of repair, and (3) there was no silver bullet that could quickly make the repairs.
If the Senate Intelligence Committee was aware of these deficiencies, so must have been the Bush Administration. Recalling the sense of urgency that prevailed at the time, is it any wonder that the Administration concluded that FISA’s rules and the FISA Court couldn’t be counted on to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks?
So far, so good. But what about the Administration’s failure to support DeWine’s legislative initiative or to propose a liberalization of FISA’s rules and procedures? Had either of these paths been taken, considerable time—probably measured in months—would have passed before the new rules and procedures went into effect. While the Congressional debate was taking place and/or after the revisions became law, it’s possible, if not likely, that the ACLU and other civil rights organizations would have filed suits to prevent the new rules and procedures from being implemented. This serves to explain why Administration spokesman Baker opined that the Administration was concerned that the courts might decide that the “reasonable suspicion†standard was unconstitutional.
This leads me to the other part of the context for debating the legality and constitutionality of warrentless surveillance. From his most recent audio tape, we know that Bin Laden pays close attention to our domestic goings-on:
I plan to speak about the repeated errors your President Bush has committed in comments on the results of your polls that show an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. But he (Bush) has opposed this wish and said that withdrawing troops sends the wrong message to opponents, that it is better to fight them (bin Laden’s followers) on their land than their fighting us (Americans) on our land.
In 2002, part of the goings-on was the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing from which I have liberally quoted. If, as should be assumed, Al Qaeda was aware of this hearing, our enemy would have learned to its delight that the FISA process wasn’t functioning properly. In particular, Al Qaeda would have relished Senator DeWine’s assertion that “the interpretation of the original FISA law has become tighter and tighter and more burdensome and more burdensome over the years.”
Had the Administration supported the DeWine proposal or submitted legislation of its own, Al Qaeda would have learned even more. While the initial hearings might have been held in camera, eventually a bill incorporating the proposed changes would have reached the floors of Congress. There would then have been no more secrets, and Al Qaeda would have been able to draw its own conclusions regarding the implications of these changes for its modus operandi.
This the Bush Administration couldn’t countenance. Instead, it chose to do an end-around on the FISA process. While it’s yet to be determined whether it acted unconstitutionally in doing so, I believe that the Administration made the right choice.
With all this attention to the legality of actions taken by the Administration, I’m curious why critics haven’t mentioned the November 2002 CIA Predator strike in Yemen that killed an al Queda member who held US citizenship. I would think concerns over the constitutionality and legality of this act must be relevant to this discussion about NSA wiretaps. If nothing else, shouldn’t this issue be of greater concern since lives instead of privacy is at stake?
If people are insisting that the President acting outside his authority, then he could be potentially guilty of murder, legally speaking of course. If we are going to argue that what he did was right but not legal, are we going start debating some sort of legislation governing the due process and circumstances by which a US citizen seeking to murder other US citizens can be dealt with. That’ll put C-SPAN’s rating thru the roof.
Or are we going to accept that this is a war and the question of legality is a poor substitute for flexibility and good judgement, something that cannot be legislated. How should we fight this war, you ask. I’ll let Sean Connery speak for me:
“You wanna know how you do it? Here’s how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get [al-Queda]! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?” – The Untouchable (1987)
Well, are you?
Surveillance And What Al Qaeda Could Perceive
As the debate rages over the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretaps tempers are flaring on both sides which means lots of angry adjectives are being hurled about.
But there is some lower-volume and thoughtful debate happening on…
The NY Times gave Mr. Bush a full year of secrecy to do something about any problems the Adminstration had with FISA. The old gray lady held her fire, and perhaps only finally revealed the story when her impatient sources threatened to go to a competitor.
With the Republican Party in control of all three branches of government during Mr. Bush’s tenure, what is the rationale for a full year’s failure to amend the FISA law and its policies, systems and procedures, to better protect the American public while attempting to insure a minimum of loss of civil liberties? Why ‘push the envelope’ on compromising civil liberties on behalf of executive power to wage war, when the American public is so well aware of the threat?
If that rationale is somehow related to a fear of informing Osama bin Laden of the capabilities of our legal system, who is it that believes bin Laden gives a tinker’s damn about our legal system? His plan for a legal system requires a clean sweep of the rule of law; OBL has little concern with our agonizing over decadent western legal procedures.
Essentially, we substituted a year’s worth of wishful delay for considered correction of FISA, as our government chose to be passive about fixing the procedures to wire-tap domestic links to foreign terrorists. And why the secrecy, the passivity, or fear of bin Laden, or fear of the response from the Democrats in Congress? The Democratic Party’s actual votes for the past three years on behalf of the nation’s war against bin Laden, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein have been overwhelmingly solid, even if not unanimous.
This (failing to reform FISA) all goes back to Mr. Bush’s fifth year in the White House, a year notorious for studied delay, obfuscation, and then demonstrating only a limp leadership at critical moments (Katrina, Ft. Bragg, Sheehan, etc). In the opinion of some, our refusal to include Reagan Democrats in the nation’s war plans accounts for too many of Mr. Bush’s unnecessary mis-steps.
Most respectfully, I disagree with Marc. I do not believe the Adminstration made the right choice about FISA. The choice it made was to make no choice, to avoid making a tough decision on how to correct a problem…which then makes the ultimate decision all the harder and, politically, far more expensive.
[...] In 2002, FISA’s appellate level Court of Review examined the entire statutory scheme for issuing warrants in national security investigations and declared the “wall” a nonsensical piece of legal overkill, based neither on express statutory language nor reasonable interpretation of the FISA statute. The lower court’s attempt to micromanage the execution of national security warrants was deemed an assertion of authority which neither Congress or the Constitution granted it. [...]
Warrantless Wiretapping—a Pro-Administration O
a post at American Future making a positive case for the Bush Administration’s use of warrantless wiretaps on international communications. And the arguments are very nicely presented, without resorting to mercuric fulminations. It is long and detail…
Nice aggregation of some highly relevant facts (e.g., empirically based assessments, relevant contexts, legislative dynamics, unknowns transparently acknowledged), perhaps especially so the statements by Leahy, Spectre, Hatch and DeWine, which likely reflect merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the byzantine legal, legislative and inter-agency problems needing to be navigated to properly and thoroughly reform FISA, along with other relevant statutes, in a manner which does not impede responsible forms of executive action.
Take one specific example only, the May 17, 2002 ruling. Was it in any way politically motivated by anti-Ashcroft animus? Was it a too narrow reading of the statutes? Was it a valid ruling, but nonetheless reflective of broader problems corresponding to outdated aspects of FISA? And how would we know the answer to any of these questions? The internecine, ideological and partisan/sectarian bickering and deeper divisions within govt., to what extent have they been a brake or even greater, deleterious factor to effectively dealing with and modifying FISA? And again, how does one appraise or answer questions like this?
Questions, intuitions, etc. remain, but this is a nice aggregation of some highly relevant material, much of it very likely representing the tip of the iceberg only.
Bravo. Great effort.
and etc.
I was prepared to congratulate your effort further, but then I read about Emory University psychologist Drew Westen’s study publicized in the Washington Post. I realize now that my feelings of approbation are self induced feel-good pats unconsciously generated in the “reward centers” of my brain because I agree with you. I can’t help myself. I am Republican.
I look forward to your next opus. Guiltily. Like anticipating a chocolate bar while reading a weight watchers diet.
Great pull together.
Personally, I’m beyond nuance on this subject. I’m all for going after the terrorists with every weapon we can muster short of being insanely hideous to stop the bad guys. Electronic surveillance is not even close to my threshold of what comprises of insanely hideous acts.
I like Louis L’Mour novel-style justice—no nonsense, this-is-how-its-gotta-be-partner-if-ur-harming-the-range-folks, determined justice.
Since you asked for more comments…
I disagree with your conclusions.
Myself, I’ve felt that administration policy was imbalanced in favor of security at the expense of civil liberties since 2001, so I am not in the group that has shifted it’s views as the memories of 9/11 becomes more distant. I’m also not in the evil state conspiracy camp either.
My view is that the terrorist threat will be defeated in the long run, but that whatever increased state power is set up to deal with terrorism will be with us forever. That is the story of the last three quarters of a century in America regardless of if it was the Depressions, World War II, the Cold War, the War on Poverty, etc. I believe that the country is better off in the long run to take more short term security risks and not have to suffer the long term effects of more centralized Federal power. I also think that the Bush administration took the security at all costs approach because it was popular. If there were an effective opposition, they’d probably have to be rethinking that now.
For this specific issue, IANAL, but I don’t think that the administration arguements for why they weren’t bound by the law make any sense. There are lots of things that don’t seem to make sense, that turn out to be legal, so who knows. Time will tell.
I think that your arguments make a case for avoiding FISA for at most months, not years. FISA was set up for a reason and we should not forget that. I think that the administration’s arguement amounts to the notion that the Executive’s Constitutional responsiblities for defense of the country effectively trump all legal restraints imposed by the Legislative branch is extraordinarily dangerous. It will come back to bite us in the long run.
Marc,
The main reason I have not followed this very much is that I have grown tired of the media chasing yet another “Bush is breaking the law” story. There have been so many and sorry to say I have duped been by more of them than I care to admit. I don’t trust them any more on issues of terrorism or foreign policy. I should be more aware of FISA but my knowledge is pretty slim in this area and so it is tricky for me to glean the truth from a media that constantly blows things out of proportion. This has led me to ignore this “controversy.” It is my feeling that if Bush did something really heinous it would be pretty obvious and indefensible—as in the manner of McCarthy. So I won’t pretend to know too many details of the FISA affair, but I can comment on the complacency that has befallen the country.
When I read that quote from the professor at Mount Holyoke College I misread your post and thought it was a parody of how George Washington would rate 9/11 as an historical event. This is a very unusual war being waged in a world that is still being weaned off the Cold War and it is not surprising that the public has moved on to other priorities. What I find surprising is the lack of seriousness among Congress and to extent the Bush administration in winning the war on terror. If they are serious:
Why hasn’t the size of the military been increased dramatically, even 4 1/3 years after 9/11? The Army is said to be at least 2 divisions under-strength.
Why do the Democrats feel the need to bash Bush at every turn and dishonor our troops by using them as pawns for their political games?
Why haven’t Republicans been pushing for more funding for alternative energy and conservation research? Instead they give most of the research money to oil, natural gas, and nuclear sectors which are already well established. On top of this they give them subsidies even during this time of record profits.
Why are Democrats against even exploration of oil in ANWR, particularly given the fact that the people who actually live there are in favor of it?
Why are the opponents of Bush’s policies incapable of giving sound critiques and offering an alternative vision instead of giving pronouncements that could very well be mistaken for those of our enemies?
Why is the defense budget still only ~ 4% of GDP? I know people have said funding is a problem, but during WWII I think we were spending something like 100% of GDP on defense. We need not go to that extreme but that showed a great deal of seriousness in a war that was most obviously existential.
The threat posed by jihadis is not as clear at the gut level because 1) only a small percentage have felt the effects of this war, 2) 9/11 at least for now was a one-off, and 3) we have a bias towards thinking of states as posing threats, even after experiencing 9/11, so that we are unaware just how dangerous non-state actors can be in this age of globalization with its increasing interdependent relations and proliferation of technology. What will it take short of of another attack to keep us engaged and fervent to win this war?
If we as a country were serious things like FISA would not be headline news for very long if at all. During war the President should have our unqualified, but critical support. We don’t the luxury of in-fighting, of constant carping. This does not mean we should not debate or dissent, but rather that there is an implicit trust that what the Administration desires is good for the well-being of the country on its most important responsibility. I used to carp too until I realized that the best way to get through this is to support our leaders even with all their flaws. For it is much harder to fight an enemy when we are having an ideological civil war amongst ourselves basically over the meaning of the very values that the enemy despises. In other words, we have much more in common with each other, whether, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, atheist, even Liberal and Conservative, than we do with those who would kill us.
Marc,
I’m with you. We are on new terrain with regard to the enemy and the communications possibilities. I expect misakes to be made- a step too far, another not far enough. The speed with which the islamists learn to use new technology is incredible, and this tips the scale toward quick, adaptible executive action.
In the end, it becomes a question of whether one trusts the American people to defend its freedoms or whether we have to be saved from ourselves. I tend to favor “you can’t fool all the people all the time.” Basically, we are a hard-headed, cussed lot. That gives me hope.
One of the problems with analysis of the terrorist intercept program is the absence of an easy to use analogy.
Could the analogy be that of a border search? The intercepted communications cross our border.
If so, then why shouldn’t cross border communications be subject to a border search?
If cross border communications were letters, they could be opened and read at the border for foreign intelligence purposes.
What is the difference between cross border letters and cross border electronic communications? One substitutes electrons for cellulose, other than that they are pretty much identical.
Why shouldn’t border crossing electronic documents and border crossing electronic signatures be treated by the law in the same manner as border crossing paper documents and border crossing paper signatures?
You wrote “In an earlier post, I gave credit to Greenwald for uncovering the fact that the Bush Administration didn’t endorse legislation introduced by Senator DeWine in June 2002 that proposed substituting “reasonable suspicion†for “probable cause†as the standard for obtaining a FISA warrant. I agreed with him that the Administration should have welcomed the proposed change to FISA. I asked what issues prevented the Administration from supporting the proposed legislation.”
I shake my head when I see how much attention Greenwald gets. He engages in the worst kind of question begging possible, yet everyone nods approvingly, as if his points were well-taken
The Dewine legislation would only have applied to persons outside the United States and therefore would have had zero impact on solving the problem. Greenwald mentions it but doesn’t address is at all, proceeding to complain that the administration had their chance to amend FISA and passed it up.
But there’s a much greater issue at stake than FISA - the dividing lines between the power of Congress and the power of the Executive. I believe the President wants to force the issue, possibly in the courts, and return power to the Presidency that has been steadily eroded by Congress.
Rule Set Shift in the Ivory Tower
As the GWOT moves forward the states engaged in destroying terror will be forced to adapt the realities of this new kind of warfare. The NSA surveillance debate, the Patriot Act, the advent of state sponsored assasination, the redefining of sovereignty…
[...] Here’s another lefty who gets it: While it’s yet to be determined whether it acted unconstitutionally in doing so, I believe that the Administration made the right choice. [...]
Gregory,
you say “It is my feeling that if Bush did something really heinous it would be pretty obvious and indefensible—as in the manner of McCarthy.” I ask: how much time elapsed between when McCarthy started his witch hunts, and when the public in general decided that what he did was not in fact defensible? How many lives were ruined? How long before we know?
[...] Discovered through The Moderate Voice — a post at American Future making a positive case for the Bush Administration’s use of warrantless wiretaps on international communications. And the arguments are very nicely presented, without resorting to mercuric fulminations. It is long and detailed, but the questions are just as complex, and I would urge a reading and consideration. [...]