Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has alluded for weeks now that he would write something more about the whole FISA wiretap stuff. He’s tried and tried. But he just can’t seem to make a cogent post out of his jumble of thoughts on the matter.
Not that a jumble of disjointed thoughts will stop him from trying!
This is reasonably timely since a number of “civil liberties” organizations are now suing to stop the wiretapping. Allow your Maximum Leader to start here. This (these?) lawsuit (lawsuits?) will go positively no where. Read the words again minions. No. Where. These groups have no standing (repeat no standing) in order to sue. No one is exactly sure who was eavesdropped upon. And while your Maximum Leader has heard such names as Christopher Hitchens bandied about, there is no proof of this. If you weren’t eavesdropped on by the NSA you don’t have the standing to sue. Your Maximum Leader predicts that the suits will be thrown out. But not until there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Secondly… Your Maximum Leader read many of the links that so many of you were kind enough to recommend. Allow him to say that his opinion has changed. While a few weeks ago he would have said he was 80% sure that what the Bush Administration had done was illegal he is now only about 60% sure that the electronic surveillance was illegal. That 40% left over is doubt. Not belief that it could legal. It is doubt. Doubt caused by turning the various issues here over and over again. After turning the issues over and over again your Maximum Leader can see a whole bunch of open questions that could be argued either way in a court. Provided you could find someone harmed by the eavesdropping and get them to sue.
To expand… Your Maximum Leader fully believes that the US government can and should engage in whatever manner of surveillance it can overseas. This is to say that we should train and use spies. We should put up spy satellites and photograph everything we can. We should penetrate foreign computer networks and gather as much electronic data as we can. We should recruit and reward foreigners to act on our behalf all over the world. All this type of stuff is pretty much legal.
But the US government can’t do these things to Americans in the United States.
The sticky wicket in all this is the way technology breaks down barriers. What do we do when someone overseas (who we can listen to) calls someone in the US (who we can’t listen to without a court order)? Your Maximum Leader will out and say that he isn’t sure. Nothing he’s read has convinced him of any position. His natural inclination is to require the government to get a court order. He likes it when the government has checks to limit its power in cases where it will use its power against his liberty.
What about a person using a “global phone” in the US? That person might “look” like he is overseas - even when he in’t. What about intercepting e-mails from someone in Pakistan to someone in the US? Again… There are lots of reasonable positions out there. Most of those reasonable positions have never been really tested in the courts. That being the case, one would hope that one would rely on their legal counsel. The Bush Administration pretty much ignored its own Attorney General. Now, it is possible that the AG was wrong and that the counsel given by the Dept of Justice was also wrong. But why not just go ahead and go to the special court that almost never rejects a request for an order to eavesdrop on someone?
So… One has a lot of untested issues out there to consider. Your Maximum Leader would have preferred more deliberation and debate on this matter.
Of course, there is another significant issue in all this. Who really wants to be the guy standing up for the terrorists in America? Your Maximum Leader would like to do everything possible to find the terrorist in our midst. (And once found he hopes that ill befalls the terrorist.) But your Maximum Leader would prefer to fight for the rights of everyone - even the terrorists residing in the US - than just say that the need to find the terrorists outweighs our need to protect our liberty. That is a pretty friggin unpopular position don’t you think? Your Maximum Leader thinks it’s an unpopular position. It makes him feel dirty (and not in a good way) advocating it. But advocate it he will. The government of the US should not be able to suspend our liberties just because there is a war on. This is the same government that didn’t want us to sacrifice or change our lifestyle just because we’re at war. Why should we be okay with sacrificing our right from warrantless searches when we don’t have to sacrifice our right to buy, buy, BUY at the mall?
The last point your Maximum Leader will make (now) on this topic is the “Oh Hum” nature of the scandal. This story has no legs. The regular person just doesn’t care. This gets back to the “defending the terrorists” aspect of it. Who is the government monitoring? Why the terrorists of course. And the people the terrorists are talking to. And the people that the people the terrorists are talking to are being monitored too. Who knows how many levels it goes? For all he knows your Maximum Leader is being monitored. He knows people from Pakistan. Those people from Pakistan know people in Pakistan - and talk to them regularly. Those people in Pakistan have neighbours. And the neighbours might know some terrorists. That is about 4 levels down the line as your Maximum Leader counts it. Humm…
But getting back to the “oh hum” nature of this issue… There is no great font of untapped fondness for terrorists or terror suspects. So are the American people going to get all hot and bothered about the rights of possible bad guys? Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think so. That does make this issue a little more insidious.
Well… There is a whole post on wiretapping. Perhaps, somewhere, there is a cogent thought in it…
Carry on.
