Invading terrorist privacy
Someone needs to get Bob Barr to explain why the NSA glancing over meaningless email exchanges between children is a major concern. Does he or the congresswoman think the NSA is going to waste valuable time inquiring further into such an email exchange, and if they did would they follow it up with a detailed look at what the kids are up to.When the German government announced arrests this week in a terrorist plot against American and German targets inside Germany, one telling detail got little notice: Two of the suspects were identified, in part, based on telephone conversations intercepted by American intelligence.
Let's replay that. U.S. intelligence intercepted cell phone calls made by German nationals in Pakistan. The U.S. passed that information to the German government, which proceeded to roll up a plot to blow up targets that may have included Ramstein Air Base and the Frankfurt airport.
This week, by unhappy coincidence, the House Judiciary Committee began hearings on the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretapping program. That program was given a six-month reprieve last month. But Democrats in Congress are trying to prevent a further extension, if they can muster the votes to oppose a program that continues to protect American lives, à la this week in Germany.
If they lack the votes, liberals are already working on a Plan B, which is to try to scare U.S. telecommunications companies from cooperating with the NSA. This would be accomplished by denying them immunity from civil lawsuits. Verizon and AT&T are among the companies already sued, and they face billions of dollars in potential liability.
The Protect America Act that passed last month gave the phone companies protection from civil liability for the six-month duration of the law, but it offered no protection for their earlier cooperation in the aftermath of 9/11. The White House requested such retrospective immunity, but it was blocked by Democrats. A cynic might conclude this is one more example of Democrats doing the bidding of their tort lawyer financiers. But let's assume their motives aren't that ugly.
That still leaves Democrats tacitly endorsing a strategy of using lawsuits to gut the wiretapping program. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has said that the potential liabilities are of an order of magnitude sufficient to bankrupt some of our biggest telcos. And even if the suits are ultimately deemed meritless in court, they could well involve sufficient costs to make the companies wary of cooperating in the future. It has already been reported that at least some phone companies are contemplating suing the government to block the enforcement of any wiretapping law that does not immunize them. That's how seriously they take the liability risk.
In this context, this week's debate on Capitol Hill was often out of this world. For example, Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz took the mic to pose a hypothetical. Suppose her child was emailing with a child in Iraq. Wouldn't current law allow the NSA to read those emails? Former Congressman Bob Barr, who was a witness, allowed that this possibility "ought to be a very major concern for certainly all of us."
University of Virginia Professor Robert Turner--a rare voice of reason during the House hearing--replied that that "If we say [the NSA] can't look at anything that's got [a] U.S. person involved without a warrant, we're going to give [Osama bin Laden] the easiest way to immunize his whole communication system." In other words, all a terrorist would have to do to mask his communications would be to cc: an American email address, putting it off limits to American surveillance.
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The whole suggestion is ridiculous on its face. But it does partially explain the paranoia of the terrorist rights crowd who are willing to let the enemy plot in secret rather than expose their kids meaningless email with foreigners.
The piece goes on to question whether the German phone calls in Pakistan had been into the US for a plot to attack here, would they be more or less important? Elevating the privacy rights of a terrorist who has already slipped into the country in a time of war has got to be one of the most ridiculous ideas the terrorist rights crowd has ever put forward.
"That still leaves Democrats tacitly endorsing a strategy of using lawsuits to gut the wiretapping program."
ReplyDelete"If Democrats want to vote against warrantless wiretaps, they should do so openly and accept the political consequences."
"Elevating the privacy rights of a terrorist who has already slipped into the country in a time of war has got to be one of the most ridiculous ideas the terrorist rights crowd has ever put forward."
These statements fundamentally don't get it. This has nothing to do with decreasing executive effectiveness, alleged public demand for a limitation on civil rights, or "terrorist rights" (a straw man you just made up). The only issue here is a judicial check on executive power which our founders thought was spot on but a minority today would prefer to obliterate.
Requiring a warrant does nothing to hinder the prosecution of crime (other than protect us against unreasonable searches and seizures); the courts are set up just for issuing such warrants in the most expeditious manner possible. To suggest this is anything other than the most minimal check on unlimited executive power is to make the presidency into a dictatorship.
You say we're in a war (in which I should point out we were attacked by a terrorist organization and subsequently attacked two countries for no particular reason)? Fine, let the president collect intelligence without a warrant. That's perfectly alright. Just don't try to pass that off as evidence.