Hillary's intercept of rivals communications

The Hill:

Republicans plan to seize on an allegation from the 1992 presidential campaign to tarnish Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on the red-hot issue of government surveillance.

Government surveillance will be at the forefront of the political debate this fall as congressional Democrats and President Bush square off over legislation allowing electronic spying on U.S. soil without a warrant.

Republicans are focusing on an allegation in a recent book by two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, which suggests Clinton listened to a secretly recorded conversation between political opponents.

In their book about Clinton’s rise to power, Her Way, Don Van Natta Jr., an investigative reporter at The New York Times, and Jeff Gerth, who spent 30 years as an investigative reporter at the paper, wrote: “Hillary’s defense activities ranged from the inspirational to the microscopic to the down and dirty. She received memos about the status of various press inquiries; she vetted senior campaign aides; and she listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation of Clinton critics plotting their next attack.

“The tape contained discussions of another woman who might surface with allegations about an affair with Bill,” Gerth and Van Natta wrote in reference to Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. “Bill’s supporters monitored frequencies used by cell phones, and the tape was made during one of those monitoring sessions.”

A GOP official said, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign hypocrisy continues to know no bounds. It is rather unbelievable that Clinton would listen in to conversations being conducted by political opponents, but refuse to allow our intelligence agencies to listen in to conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot and plan to kill us. Team Clinton can expect to see and hear this over and over again over the course of the next year.”

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Several legal experts said it was illegal to intercept cell phone conversations in 1992.

“It’s been clear that since 1986 it was illegal to intercept an individual cell phone call,” said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

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In August, Clinton voted against an emergency law that temporarily expanded the government’s power to conduct surveillance on American soil without a warrant. The bill was criticized for being overly broad and sidelining the role of a special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Senate’s other Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.), Chris Dodd (Conn.), and Joseph Biden (Del.), also voted against the bill.

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Al Qaeda has its privacy rights but those bimbo eruption calls are too important to ignore. By any reasonable standard the hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton on this issue should be devastating. But reasonable standards do not apply to the Clintons so don't hold your breath expecting this or any other taint to slow the Clinton campaign. She will have her advisers create an artful dodge that most of the media will buy. They are too invested in her victory to do anything to undermine it.