AP mischaracterized controversy surrounding NSA spying program
SUMMARY: An Associated Press article described the debate over the NSA spying program as "whether the administration should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications" and reported that "congressional Democrats" have criticized this practice. However, critics of the program have not contested that the administration "should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications." Rather, the controversy concerns whether the president is legally authorized to allow the domestic eavesdropping without first obtaining a warrant.
In a January 26 article, Associated Press staff writer Ron Fournier described the debate over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program as "whether the administration should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications." He further reported that "congressional Democrats" have criticized this practice. But Fournier misstated the issue at the center of this debate. Critics of the domestic surveillance program have not contested that the administration "should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications." Rather, the controversy 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 apparently required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
In an article focusing on Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) January 25 speech criticizing the NSA domestic surveillance program, Fournier wrote:
Clinton leveled her criticism at a meeting of the nation's mayors while Bush toured the National Security Agency, which conducts the eavesdropping. His tour was part of the White House's aggressive campaign to defend the practice of eavesdropping on calls and other communications made overseas from the United States.
Polls suggest the public is divided on whether the administration should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications, a practice that has drawn criticism from many congressional Democrats, human rights and civil liberties groups. Bush and his political team have signaled that the eavesdropping program will be a campaign issue in November, part of a broader strategy to cast Democrats as weak on terrorism.
Elsewhere in the article, Fournier accurately described the NSA program as "eavesdropping on domestic conversations without warrants" and noted that FISA requires such warrants to conduct domestic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. In the above excerpt, however, he clearly misrepresented the activities in question.
In doing so, Fournier left readers with the false impression that "congressional Democrats, human rights and civil liberties group" have criticized the practice of wiretapping suspected terrorists. In fact, no congressional Democrats -- nor other prominent members of the Democratic Party -- have objected to the monitoring of suspected terrorists' communications, as Media Matters for America noted in response to recent allegations by White House senior adviser Karl Rove. In a January 20 speech, Rove falsely claimed that "some important Democrats clearly disagree" with the proposition that "if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why."
To the contrary, Democratic leaders such as Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) have repeatedly asserted the need for U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on the communications of suspected Al Qaeda operatives. At the same time, Democrats -- alongside numerous Republicans and conservatives -- have raised questions about the Bush administration's decision to bypass FISA in conducting such surveillance.
AP confesses, claiming these LIES about what this issue is about is "part of a broader strategy to cast Democrats as weak on terrorism".
Which AP should complete by saying "OF WHICH WE ARE PART."
If you have evidence someone is linked to Al-Qaida, GET A WARRANT, then Wiretap.
Too difficult? How about, Wiretap, then GET A WARRANT within the next three days.
That ought to work, unless, maybe, your evidence won't hold up well enough to get a warrant. Hmm.
I think we are all under the dubious assumption that the administration is actually doing what it says it is doing.
Only the Shadow knows what lurks in the cold heart of this administration.
Maybe, just maybe, they do not want ANY record of who they are listening in on hmmmmm?
That absence of a warrant, is also the absence of a record as to who is being wiretapped, and for what reason (or for what 'probable cause'); and all the speculations and hypotheses about the 'who' and the 'why' of the administration's 'warrantless surveillance' of U.S. Citizens, is no more than a blind faith in that administration...
...a blind faith so less and less held by the American People, as to find few who would profess it.
This administration would be nothing without blind faith. They have come to rely on it from their followers in order to get them out of jams time after time. I don't blame them for relying on it. People need to wise up before we get to checkmate (pure dictatorship).
This item addresses the very heart of the debate, and the very heart of the misinformation; of course the debate is not about 'conducting surveillance', but is about...
WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE
...and until our media characterizes the heart of this matter correctly, we will continue to correct their mischaracterizations.
And the item quotes the Associated Press article as stating...
"Polls suggest the public is divided on whether the administration should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications"
...well, any Person whatsoever, who would answer a poll question on the need for surveillance against suspected terrorists, and would say they were against such surveillance; well, that Person would be an idiot, as not knowing anything at all about the matter on which they were being polled.
But on the matter of conducting surveillance WITHOUT A WARRANT, every Person who knows anything at all about the matter, either asks the question themselves (or provides the answer to it), as to...
Why not seek a warrant?
Why not obey the law, and seek authorization from a Judge?
Why not use the resource that is the FISA Court, a resource both secret and expeditious, and provided to us for just such a purpose as authorizing surveillance?
Why circumvent that Court; why not show 'probable cause', supported by sworn testimony; why conduct surveillance without a warrant?
...and the longer the administration fails to answers these questions, then the longer We the People are left to conjecture those answers; a conjecture that includes the possibility that there exists no 'probable cause' whatsoever for such WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE; or at least none that the administration will support, with sworn testimony.
How much longer until we start getting the right-wing spin that a warrant is just a piece of paper, a "technicality" if you will, and it's always the liberals that let people off on technicalities?
Never mind the fact that this technicality is an integral part of our legal / judicial system.
This administration firmly believes that they answer to no authority other than the President himself. Any interference from the Judiciary or Congress is viewed as an unreasonable violation of Executive Privilege and/or incursion upon the Unitary Executive. Congress and the Judiciary exist to rubber stamp presidential edicts.
Under this theory, the President is incapable of breaking the Law or violating the Constitution insomuch as the President is the one who determines what the Law is and what the Constitution means.
And, when this matter finally gets to the Supreme Court, which master do you think Justice I'lllietoyou will serve with his tie-breaking vote - the Constitution or Duhhbya?
No such person is a Justice yet, as the action on that otherwise 'quiet front' is beginning to draw surprised attention; the cloture motion not yet having the declared support, and the Majority appearing evermore anxious about it.
There's no reason why the 72 hour window for obtaining a warrant couldn't have been used UNLESS a)the wiretaps included more than just al-Qaeda suspects, and/or b) the intel justifying the tap would be traceable to torture or a European gulag. It seems to be a fairly straightforward issue; why couldn't the FISA standards be adhered to? Too bad to see the AP joining in the spinning, muddying, diversionary tactics used by the hard core Bush apologist media blowhards.