AP uncritically repeated Rove's dubious claim that warrantless wiretapping "might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks"

Summary: An Associated Press article uncritically repeated Karl Rove's assertion that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program "might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," even though law enforcement officials had information on some of the 9-11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks occurred. The article also accepted Rove's characterization of the debate over the program as whether "the government should be free to listen if al-Qaida is calling someone within the U.S.," although critics of the program have not contested this point.

An August 24 Associated Press article by reporter John Seewer uncritically repeated White House senior adviser Karl Rove's dubious assertion that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program "might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks" and accepted, without challenge, Rove's mischaracterization of the debate over the program as whether "the government should be free to listen if al-Qaida is calling someone within the U.S."

According to the AP, while he was speaking at a fundraiser for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell, Rove denounced federal district court judge Anna Diggs Taylor's August 17 ruling that the wiretapping program is unconstitutional. Rove reportedly stated: "Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome." But as Media Matters for America has noted, according to January 24 and January 5 articles in The Washington Post, the Bush administration had information on two of the 9-11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, more than a year before the attacks occurred. And according to the 9-11 Commission and congressional investigators, it was primarily bureaucratic problems -- rather than a lack of information -- that resulted in their escaping detection. The January 5 Post article reported that, according to the 9-11 Commission report, the "bigger problem" was that FBI investigators "had missed numerous opportunities to track" down Alhazmi and Almihdhar.

Moreover, critics of the domestic surveillance program have not contested that the administration "should be free to listen if al-Qaida is calling someone within the U.S," as Rove suggested. Rather, as Media Matters has noted, the controversy surrounding the program concerns whether the president is legally authorized to let the National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans without first obtaining a warrant as required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

From the August 24 Associated Press report, by reporter John Seewer:

TOLEDO -- Presidential adviser Karl Rove criticized a federal judge's order for an immediate end to the government's warrantless surveillance program, saying Wednesday such a program might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Headlining a fundraiser for Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who is running for governor, Rove said the government should be free to listen if al-Qaida is calling someone within the U.S.

"Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome," he said.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit last week became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, ruling it unconstitutional.

—R.S.K.