NY Times reported Rove claims about Clinton's votes on surveillance without noting they are false
SUMMARY: In writing about Karl Rove's August 15 appearance on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, New York Times reporter Patrick Healy reported that Rove claimed Sen. Hillary Clinton "opposed the USA Patriot Act, domestic surveillance programs and other antiterrorism measures." The Times did not note that Clinton, in fact, voted for both the original USA Patriot Act in 2001 and its reauthorization in 2006. Healy also misrepresented what Rove actually said when he falsely accused Clinton of opposing certain changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
An August 16 New York Times article by reporter Patrick Healy on outgoing White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove's August 15 appearance on Rush Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show -- headlined "Rove Steps Up His Attacks on Clinton's Candidacy" -- reported that Rove claimed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) "opposed the USA Patriot Act, domestic surveillance programs and other antiterrorism measures." The Times did not note that Clinton, in fact, voted for both the original USA Patriot Act in 2001 and its reauthorization in 2006. Additionally, in paraphrasing Rove by saying he claimed Clinton opposed "domestic surveillance and other antiterrorism measures," Healy misrepresented what Rove actually said. Rove falsely accused Clinton of opposing changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would allow U.S. authorities to monitor "the communications of international terrorists who are communicating with other international terrorists"; in reality, what Clinton and other Democrats opposed was a FISA revision that would allow the U.S. to spy on domestic conversations without a warrant.
In his interview with Limbaugh, Rove said:
ROVE: This is like a woman who has opposed the Patriot Act that gave us the tools to defend the homeland. This is a woman who opposes the terrorist surveillance program that allowed us to listen in on the conversations of bad people who are calling into the United States. She opposed the FISA reforms that would allow us to listen into communications and see the communications of international terrorists who are communicating with other international terrorists, even outside the country whose messages simply happened to flow through U.S. telecom networks.
In fact, Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in 2001 and for the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act in March 2006 and against a filibuster of that bill, although she supported a filibuster of an earlier version of the bill.
Healy's article did not report that falsehood, nor did it report the falsehood in Rove's assertion -- which the Times paraphrased -- that Clinton "opposed the FISA reforms that would allow us to listen into communications and see the communications of international terrorists who are communicating with other international terrorists, even outside the country whose messages simply happened to flow through U.S. telecom networks." Clinton, in fact, voted in favor of a version of the bill that would have reversed a reported ruling limiting the administration's ability to intercept certain foreign-to-foreign communications without a warrant. She voted against a much broader bill to amend FISA to give the administration authority to intercept certain domestic-to-foreign communications without a warrant.
The Democratic bill specifically stated that a warrant is not required for foreign-to-foreign contacts regardless of whether they pass through, as Rove said, "U.S. telecom networks." From the bill that Clinton voted for:
Sec. 105A. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for the electronic surveillance of the contents of any communication between persons that are not located within the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.
The Republican version, sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), passed. That bill, as described by the Times' James Risen in an August 6 article, did not simply allow the government to "see the communications of international terrorists who are communicating with other international terrorists," but rather it "broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants." From that article:
President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
Additionally, although Clinton has stated her opposition to the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program, she has expressed support for wiretapping that complies with the law. Clinton said as much in a July 16, 2006, speech to the American Constitution Society:
Now I believe that the President -- and I mean any President -- must have the ability to pursue terrorists and defend our national security with the best technology at hand. But we have existing law that allows that -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or so-called FISA. We have judicial mechanisms in place that this Administration could have used to obtain authority for what it did; we have a system of Congressional oversight and review that this Administration could have used to obtain a legislative solution to these challenges.
Instead, they relied on questionable legal authority and bypassed our system of checks and balances. In the months since NSA's activities have come to light, both the legislative branch and the judiciary have attempted to learn more about the Administration's surveillance programs. In denying Congress and the courts any information, the Administration's refrain has been "Trust us." They've used it to justify frustrating legislative oversight, denying the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility the clearances they needed to conduct an internal investigation, and just a few days ago we learned they are now invoking the State Secret Exception to shut down any judicial review of their conduct through assertion of that privilege. That's unacceptable; their track record does not warrant our trust.
Rove has previously misrepresented the positions taken by Democrats on surveillance. As Media Matters for America noted, in an address at the Republican National Committee's (RNC) winter 2006 meeting, Rove defended President Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program by making the false claim 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."
Rove and Rush they are meant for eachother.
Neocons trashing the Clintons? Lying about their own lies? Come on! Let's cut the crap and talk about what's really important
Engaged Sorry... I couldn't resist. Apparently, this is big news to CNN.
I'm getting confused by what liberals oppose. Didn't the Patriot Act supposedly restrict our freedoms? I thought that whole thing was a Bush powergrab that didn't make us more safe.
And yet Hillary voted for it.
Twice.
Alrighty then.
The first time Senator Clinton voted for it, Democrats as a whole were cowered into voting for it.
Voting for the re-authorization, there isn't much excuse for ... other than maybe Senator Clinton realized it was going to pass anyway (which it would have), so she decided to make a show for it to the Kdraggers, so that when she ran for President, they couldn't say she was weak on terra-ists.
These "Knuckledraggers" from the Republican side that many on here affectionately refer to apparently lead Democrats around by the nose. Dems plot their every move based on what the "knuckledraggers" will do. And yet supposedly these same Dems are "leadership" material?
Alrighty then.
True enough, the allowance of the changes to FISA especially demonstrated a ridiculous lack of spine on the part of Democrats. Bush and his war are enormously unpopular, but the Republicans say "national security" and they get what they want. The stock answer should be "That's how we got into Iraq. Why should we trust you now?"
I don't know who is advising these people, but they need help.
Not being lead around by the nose, but pre-emptively cutting off an area of attack. Don't give your opponent more amunition, unless they're shooting themselves in the foot ... which Republicans have been doing a really good job of lately.
The problem with that is twofold;first, voting against the patriot act or the war or the abandonment of Habeus Corpus, etc, does not indicate any real weakness on national security;second, even if you vote the way they want they'll still paint you as being weak on defense. It's not like they have reservations about lying or the media will expose them for it, as is demonstrated here so often.
So by giving in to it, one just supports the assertions that the actions are necessary, which is definitely giving the opponents more ammunition.
That's just absurd. While pragmatic, it's a clear exercise of unprincipled backward logic. No matter what you say, there's no way to justify doing what you believe to be wrong because you're afraid somebody who is wrong will attack you for doing what you believe is right.
How is the rationalization behind the second vote any different than the rationalization behind the first vote? If neither were true and principled votes on issues of war and peace, what's the difference between being intimidated and being pragmatic?
err...that should have read war and peace or civil liberties...
Unlike Republicans, the Democrats are connected by one big collective zombie brain. I think it's fair to say that in general there's a far wider range of thought among the Democrats than among Republicans.
That should read the Democrats AREN'T connected...
thankyou for that clarification, whew, had me worried.
Oh, so when Democratic candidates and their supporters say one thing, i.e. that they oppose the Patriot Act, but when the candidates turn around and vote for it's reauthorization, the supporters say it's because they are not " collective zombies and have a wider range of thought" than their opponents.
Wow, now that's good.......
Well, I shouldn't have written the word Democrats, because the poster I was responding to wrote, "I'm getting confused by what liberals oppose."
I don't consider Hillary a liberal, so my post wasn't intended as a defense of her voting record. I was really just attempting to address the statement that I quoted above. The idea that what liberals, as a collective whole, oppose and/or support should be uniform across the board its what I was trying to counter. It was an admittedly sloppy attempt.
Bills are complicated things. They arent a specific statement like you made. For instance a bill might overall do a lot of good things and have a few bad provisions. Criticising those provisions and still feeling like they are balanced out by the overall thrust of the bill is quite common. So by oversimplifying the criticism you have made a strawman. Most liberals I know support the majority of the Patriot act and have specific problems with five or six of the bills provisions.
Some parts of the Patriot Act are quite flawed. Other parts aren't so bad.
Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, and I think that for most Democrats, they were damned if they didn't sign the bill, because then they would have been attacked for that rejection of protections, and they were damned if they did, because there was so much stuff in there that shouldn't have been in there.
I don't lay the blame on Democrats. I lay the blame on the shoulders of the Republicans in Congress and Bush who pushed through the obnoxious stuff, knowing that many Democrats would hold their noses and vote for it because of the valuable stuff included.
Only right-wingers would accuse Hillary Clinton of being liberal. "Democrat" does not necessarily equal "liberal."
I'm getting confused by what liberals oppose. Didn't the Patriot Act supposedly restrict our freedoms?
Parts of it do. Increased information sharing was definitely needed, for instance.
But data mining of our phone calls and email does definitely infringe on our civil liberties, and should be addressed. That the Congress went on vacation without spending more time on polishing up the Patriot Act was either lazy or a political gambit.
But don't let that get in the way of just bashing Democrats.
Well Bruce, maybe you're confused because you rely on all the stupid over-simplification that goes on, especially in the right-wing, mainstream media. Hillary pisses off people you would consider to be liberal all the time, yet she is portrayed as and even called 'ultra-liberal' all the time by the 'fair and balanced' press. But that's just too confusing. You see Media Matters you think 'liberal,' you see Hillary you think 'liberal' and because of all the propaganda that has been so successfully crammed into your brain, you get confused. Actually, what MM is doing here is what they usually do; point out inacuracy, hypocricy and lies in the MEDIA. They aren't taking a position on Hillary's vote on the Patriot Act. They are pointing out how the 'mainstream' media is often a tool of the right to spread their word and confuse the simple-minded. Prove to me that you didn't deserve that.
Of course Rovesputin lied. That is what he does. Of course the Corporate Media reports Rove's lies uncritically. That is what they do: preserve at any cost the Repugnant malignancy that bestows upon that media the "right" to lie to us without fear of contradiction or competition.
Far better to return to the printing press as the only way to publish, than to endure this cancerous growth, which continues even now to strive to control (censor) the internet as completely as they have censored our other media.
Here we go again. How do you fight people that will just lie & lie & lie to make sure that their candidates win. Sure, now we all know what the truth is. But all those people that listen to limbaugh, all those people that read the Times article, they're never going to know the truth. They'll just assume that "Oh, Hillary votes against all of this. Rove must know he's talking about." Those of us that belong to Media Matters & like groups, well we were going to vote Hillary or another Dem anyway. But it's all those people sitting on the fence that hear things like this...they inevitably fall of the fence to the right. How can we fight back without just being liers as well? It's people like Rove, Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz, Libby, Rice, et al. & their lack of conscience that has cost us the last 2 presidential elections & may very well end up costing us the next. And meanwhile it continues to cost precious lives.