Everyone seems to be talking about the new revelations about the NSA phone-monitoring project…and I must say that my initial reaction was that it was an egregious violation of civil liberties.
But I admit that, like you, I don't know everything about the program and that to some extent, I'm working backwards from my growing distrust of this administration. I am not alone in this attitude and we are not necessarily wrong. Almost everyone in America is getting suspicious to some extent of the White House claims as to what's legal. Especially since it often seems to go no deeper than, "Whatever Bush wants done."
So here's what I would like to know. As we've all heard, most telecom companies went along with the program but Qwest did not. This may not have been, as some are suggesting, because they were certain it was illegal. It seems more like Qwest wanted more proof than the Bush administration's say-so that it was Kosher. Here's a snippet from The New York Times…
The telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws, a lawyer for the telephone company's former chief executive said today. In a statement released this morning, the lawyer said that the former chief executive, Joseph N. Nacchio, made the decision after asking whether "a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request." Mr. Nacchio learned that no warrant had been granted and that there was a "disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process," said the lawyer, Herbert J. Stern. As a result, the statement said, Mr. Nacchio concluded that "the requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."
Sounds to me like Qwest would have cooperated if some court, like the FISA court, had merely signed off on the program. The firm's stance may have been a courageous defense of its customers' freedom but it could also have been a cover-yer-ass fear of finding itself in a massive class action lawsuit. You know…the kind people are now vowing to file against Verizon, BellSouth, etc. I'm big on civil liberties but if I was running a big telecommunications company and the President of the United States (or his reps) came to me and asked for what they've asked for, I'm not sure my response wouldn't have been, "Fine. Just give me a written guarantee that this is legal. I don't want to say yes and then a year from now, some court rules it's unconstitutional and people sue and I have to go before my stockholders and explain why I didn't get more assurance."
Which brings me to the part I'm wondering about. The Bush administration makes the claim that this program is absolutely, unquestionably legal and absolutely, unquestionably necessary. But as with many of their approaches to surveillance, they would rather cripple the program than go in and have a judge sign off on it. They decided to do without monitoring QWest's 15-18 million subscribers. So what happens if they're tracking the phone calls of Al Qaeda Member #1, who has Verizon, and he keeps phoning Al Qaeda Member #2, who has Qwest? Doesn't the trail of information end there? Wouldn't it have been better to get the warrant so Qwest would get with the program and tell them who Al Qaeda Member #2 had called?
The position of the Bush administration with regard to spying on people seems to be that there's no doubt it's necessary and no doubt it's legal. In fact, it's so necessary that they don't want to take a chance some judge will think it's illegal and stop it. But of course, there's no doubt it's legal.
No wonder this guy's at 29%.