How do you suppose our moral, ethical, judicial, and democratic
authority in the world is impacted by the recent revalations and
aggressive defense of wire-tapping without a court order (or a check to
balance). A quick glance at GoogleNews finds the world press picking up the story or listen to NPR’s The World for a better overview (link is to audio file, 2:15).
Just last year, President Bush said, "Any time you hear the United
States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap
requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re
talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a
court order before we do so."
Read Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest:
A
federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government
surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush’s
secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two
sources.
IntelDump has an excellent response from Sen Feinstein (CA-D) that is a must read. Some of the comments posted in response are interesting reads themselves, giving insights into the thinking of some of our population.
Domestic intelligence collection is governed by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. This law sets out
a careful set of checks and balances that are designed to ensure that
domestic intelligence collection is conducted in accordance with the
Constitution, under the supervision of judges and with accountability
to the Congress of the United States.How can I go out, how can any Member of this body go out, and say that
under the PATRIOT Act we protect the rights of American citizens if, in
fact, the President is not going to be bound by the law, which is the
FISA court?And there are no exceptions to the FISA court.
If the President wanted this authority, he should have come to the
Intelligence Committee for an amendment to FISA, and he did not.
How will this play out internationally? In truth, this is the real issue since it seems likely our domestic audience may be reaching Bush-fatigue with all of the problems / revelations coming out and, more importantly, gaining traction. Perhaps that is Bush’s best domestic defense: fatigue. Outside the United States, however, the different ballgame the Administration refers to as the "illusory international community" will bite back in the near future, especially when our official public diplomacy efforts are anything but.
The WhirledView has an excellent piece on the disasterous (can any other word really be used?) PD efforts of the Undersecretary. This really is recommended reading to put in context the missteps of this Administration. I could highlight some passages, but that would be a disservice to Patricia Lee Sharpe.
Who is winning the war of hearts and minds and the "struggle for ideas"? It isn’t the US and this is another example the "other" side, which is not just the radical religious zealots we call al-Qaeda and friends, will actively and passively use against us. The opportunities, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami, to show how the US can help better the situation at a local level, not just state or regional level, are huge. We need to do it. If the local population wants a stadium built, let’s build it and build it right and not demonstrate how well we can exploit the local barter and bribe economy.
One last thought: did the "enemy" really make a conscious decision to choose communication methods because of FISA thinking they’d be safer? I put enemy in quotes because I suspect there will be future news about who was tapped and how they seemed remarkably more similar to the kid trying to check out Mao’s Little Red Book than a gang-banger-turned terrorist or other real threat. The real problem demonstrates this Administration’s inability to face reality, sad to say, is the act of the illegal wiretapping. If it was revealed FISA had been used daily for everyday since 9/11, the story would have been far different (i.e. defensable). However, this Administration has clearly chosen to avoid the "outsider" (including academics and think tanks and the Pentagon) who recommends specific actions in operational theatres, including pre- / intra- / post- Iraq, Afghanistan, the "Islamic" world, and anywhere else. It is their way or the highway, which ultimately is not very democratic, now is it?