A coalition of the paranoid

NY Times:

Stung by the recent passage of legislation to expand government surveillance powers, two prominent liberal bloggers are teaming up with right-leaning libertarians on a new political action committee to combat perceived threats to civil liberties.

Trevor Lyman, who worked on behalf of the presidential campaign of Representative Ron Paul, spearheaded Mr. Paul’s “money bombs” in which thousands of supporters made nearly simultaneous online donations. After those efforts on behalf of Mr. Paul resulted in record fund-raising drives, he is now offering his company’s services to the “Strangebedfellows” - named for the left-right coalition - and their effort to raise money for the new AccountabilityNowPAC.

“We want Democrats in Congress to perceive that there’s a price to pay when they betray the values of their supporters on these issues,” said Glenn Greenwald, host of a liberal blog on Salon.com.

Organizers are hoping Friday’s money bomb will bring in $1 million to add to the approximately $350,000 the group collected to oppose the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which it used to placed ads attacking three Democrats who supported the surveillance legislation: Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, as well as Representatives Chris Carney of Pennsylvania and John Barrow of Georgia.

AccountabilityNow, which aims to play a political role from which groups like the American Civil Liberties Union are barred, plans to buy print ads with the new funds criticizing Mr. Hoyer and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami-area Republican, for co-sponsoring a measure endorsing a naval blockade of Iran, and they also plan to buy space to call for Congress to look into the F.B.I.’s handling of the anthrax investigation. By 2010, AccountabilityNow hopes to field primary candidates that support its civil libertarian, anti-war positions.

“We think politicians are vulnerable on these issues even though it doesn’t make it into our mainstream discourse,” Mr. Greenwald said.

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I think this is nuts. The public wants the US to intercept enemy communications and what these guys want is to punish those who help us do it. That just makes no sense. It is in fact idiotic to use a back door means of thwarting the governments ability to intercept the communication of the enemy with its operatives in the US.

It starts with the false premise that the Constitution requires court approval of intercepting enemy communications. It does that by assuming that constitutional provisions to protect the rights of criminals applies to enemy combatants. It never has. During the civil war no court order was needed to tap into the telegraph lines of the other side. To suggest that would not have even passed the laugh test.

The perceived threat to Americans that this coalition of the paranoid is trying to stop just does not exist in any meaningful way anyhow. The people who are trying to stop the next al Qaeda attack don't have the time or the inclination to care what Greenwald says to Ron Paul or anyone else. I know I don't have the slightest curiosity about their conversations.

I am very curious about the calls from known al Qaeda operatives into the US and think the government should have unfettered access to those calls without having to jump through hoops and without having the phone companies threatened with litigation for facilitating the intercept of those communications.