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| The National Intelligence Director Explains Why Bush's Critics Have Blood on Their Hands |
| 2007-08-30 |
| Because he's resigning, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales won't have much chance to exercise his powers under the Protect America Act. The new law charges the attorney general with determining which international communications involving people in the U.S. will be subject to warrantless surveillance. Members of Congress were so distrustful of Gonzales that they insisted he share this authority with the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. But while McConnell, the apolitical expert, may enjoy a better reputation for honesty and independence than Gonzales, the longtime Bush crony, the two men seem to have similar instincts about privacy and executive power. In a recent interview with the El Paso Times, McConnell regrets the debate about the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program: "The fact (that) we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die," he says. "Because it's so public." McConnell is trying to frighten Americans into supporting President Bush's anti-terrorism policies. Worse, he is charging critics of those policies with complicity in murder. As Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, observes, "He's basically saying that democracy is going to kill Americans." And not just democracy but constitutional government of any kind, because by McConnell's logic, anything that interferes with the president's unilateral decisions regarding national security "means that some Americans are going to die." McConnell wants to have it both ways: Terrorists are so sophisticated that the government needs broad surveillance powers to thwart them, yet they are too stupid to realize someone might be listening to their phone calls or reading their e-mails. Evidently the possibility occurred to them only after they read about it in the newspaper. Because the discussion of NSA surveillance has not revealed information specific enough to help terrorists escape detection, it seems clear McConnell's real concern is that public debate might impede Bush's policies. This is a new twist on the old argument for secrecy: Information must be kept from the public not just to keep it from our enemies but to prevent the public from objecting to measures the president considers necessary to protect national security. Providing further evidence that he sees classification as a way to avoid the inconvenience of defending the administration's policies, McConnell uses the interview to confirm something the administration has long insisted it could not discuss safely: that telecommunications companies helped the NSA conduct its warrantless surveillance. Although that much may have seemed obvious, the Justice Department has tried to stop lawsuits against the cooperating carriers by arguing that even acknowledging their help would endanger national security. But now that Bush wants Congress to give the companies retroactive immunity from liability for aiding and abetting the illegal snooping, McConnell is suddenly more forthcoming. "Under the president's program," he says, "the private sector had assisted us." Now those assistants need assistance, he explains, because "if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies." Judging from this example, Bush administration officials feel duty-bound to withhold information when it might be useful to critics of the president's anti-terrorism policies, because those policies are necessary to protect national security. But they believe the very same information can -- indeed, should -- be released at a more opportune time, when it will help the president pursue his policies. In the interview, McConnell makes a point of describing himself as "an apolitical figure" who has voted for candidates from both major parties and is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He means to reassure us that we can trust him, a nonpartisan professional, to make decisions about whose communications to monitor. But McConnell is a professional spy. He naturally wants to do his spying as free from restrictions as possible. We would not trust prosecutors to say what due process is, and we should not trust spies to define the limits of our privacy. My favorite quote from Ben Franklin seems apropos: "Those who would give up essential liberty, for a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." |
| Posted by:mcsegeek1 |
| #9 McConnell wants to have it both ways: Terrorists are so sophisticated that the government needs broad surveillance powers to thwart them, yet they are too stupid to realize someone might be listening to their phone calls or reading their e-mails. Evidently the possibility occurred to them only after they read about it in the newspaper. I suppose it never occurred to the author how there are so many terrorists that monitoring them requires more effort than simple manpower can economically provide. Ergo, "broad surveillance" is most certainly warranted. So far, terrorists have also shown a distinct immunity to common sense that continues to justify such surveillance methodologies. Finally, concealed language, code, cryptography or whatever still does not fully obscure the chain of physical, telecom or Internet addresses that then provide physical links in connecting up these aspiring mass murderers. While direct military intervention is much more effective, without that option being fully employed this sort of monitoring is vital in the extreme. Franklin didn't live in a time where a single person could kill tens of thousands people. This goes to the heart of other discussions I have had with friends. One of them maintained that America's Founding Fathers simply could not have anticipated the advent of such a monstrous evil as Nazism and therefore it was well worth considering a constitutional ban on all forms of it. I will venture that the exact same may apply to Islam as well. Both ideologies entertain a vast catalog of undeniable human rights violations and both of them aspire to violent world domination via genocide and military conquest. There is absolutely no reasonable explanation for why it is important that either concept be granted credibility or legal protections. Either one would just as quickly abolish constitutional law and the unalienable rights of free men. Permitting such inimical forces to permeate our society serves no useful purpose. Much as there are constraints upon conspiracy to commit mass murder, overthrow of government and similar criminal acts, Nazism and Islam both qualify for similar proscriptions. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-30 22:29 |
| #8 Last I heard, Gonzo fired 9 prosecutors, while Janet Reno canned 93. Guess who received the worst publicity? |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-08-30 19:54 |
| #7 McConnell wants to have it both ways: Terrorists are so sophisticated that the government needs broad surveillance powers to thwart them, yet they are too stupid to realize someone might be listening to their phone calls or reading their e-mails. Evidently the possibility occurred to them only after they read about it in the newspaper. Well, it might occur to them that *someone* could be listening, but now they know. Spot the difference? |
| Posted by: The Doctor 2007-08-30 13:07 |
| #6 McConnell is trying to frighten Americans into supporting President Bush's anti-terrorism policies. Worse, he is charging critics of those policies with complicity in murder. The bureaucrats in the FBI who failed to act upon warnings, the staffers who built the wall in information sharing, and those who failed to carry through with charged tasks to hunt Benny should have faced accessory charges in 9/11. Just as at Abu Ghrib the command chain paid for their pathetic supervision, instead of handing out rewards and decorations, those bureaucrats should have been hammered, publicly and harshly. As the French would say, pour encourager les autres. The 'critics' can reside in the next circle of hell. Although there may be a specific circle awaiting the operators and owners of the NYT. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-08-30 10:48 |
| #5 Don't overlook the modifiers in Franlin's quote ("essential," "little," and "temporary.") |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-08-30 08:30 |
| #4 See also FREEREPUBLIC > GETTING VIETNAM RIGHT. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-08-30 03:49 |
| #3 Franklin didn't live in a time where a single person could kill tens of thousands people. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-08-30 02:12 |
| #2 McConnell is trying to frighten Americans into supporting President Bush's anti-terrorism policies. Worse, he is charging critics of those policies with complicity in murder. If common sense and good judgement fails to work effectively, fear is a damn good motivator. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-08-30 01:27 |
| #1 Franklin spent most of the American Revolution in France. |
| Posted by: Fordesque 2007-08-30 01:22 |