Karl Rove: “President Bush thinks that if al-Qaeda is calling someone in this country the government should know who and why.”
This is the argument that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush are making to justify the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. I don’t know anyone who disagrees with the statement. We obviously want to monitor all al-Qaeda communications, all the time, no matter the circumstances. The disagreement is over the ‘warrantless’ part of the program.
Now, let’s use our brains here for a moment. The only reason we know about the NSA wiretaps is because “Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation’s legality and oversight.”
Do you think that nearly a dozen NSA employees would come forth to leak about a program that was restricted to monitoring al-Qaeda communications?
No?
Well, neither do I. And it isn’t just the NSA that has been guilty of spying on U.S. citizens that have no connection to terrorism.
Back on December 14th, William Arken reported on the 902nd Military Intelligence Group’s infiltration of a Quaker anti-war group. He has more on the story today:
Meanwhile, the Pentagon also released a 2-page January 13 memorandum
(pdf) directing "all DOD intelligence and counterintelligence
(CI) personnel" to receive "refresher training on the policies for
collection, retention, dissemination and use of information related to U.S.
persons."Early
warning on December 14 reported the Pentagon program of domestic
spying, in cooperation with NBC News. A
Defense Department database covering the time period of 2004-2005 and leaked to
this reporter gave a rare look at accelerated U.S. military intelligence
collection since 9/11, including reporting on anti-war and anti-military
recruiting protests throughout the United States.The Defense Department database was prepared by the
Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), which I had already
written about and Walter Pincus began reporting
on for this newspaper in November.Now Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordan England is not only
order (sic) sensitivity training at the Pentagon, but also directing CIFA to purge
its "TALON" database of "any reports that should not be in the
database.
Whenever you come across some idiot, like Bill Maher, that says that they have no problem with the NSA leaks because they want to spy on al-Qaeda, ask them why a court would reject such a request if it had any validity. Ask them if they think Quakers are terrorists, and whether anti-war groups should be safe from unreasonable searches. Ask them why these activities have leaked, if the people carrying them out thought the activities were legal and justifiable.
These are impeachable offenses. Don’t let anyone muddle the issue, or try to play you for a fool.
I just heard Rove on NPR stating that:
“Republicans are living in a post 9-11 world. Democrats are living in a pre-9-11 world. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic, but it does make them wrong.”
Oooh… There is so much in there that I don’t even know where to begin! Are people really still buying the whole “post-9-11” bit? Didn’t you get the memo, Karl? Using 9-11 as an excuse to do everything short of eating a baby on live TV is soooo 2004. Get with the program, buddy.
That and Rove’s little qualification about Dems not being unpatriotic … WTF? So you want us to believe that: you accept that Democrats are patriotic, but not that Quakers aren’t terrorists???
Stunning. Stunning. I really have to question those who suggest this man might be a genius…
I think he’s nuts! What was the saying–There is a fine line between insanity and genius…something like that…
Rove relies on the vast amounts of Americans who are too stupid, or ill-informed by their own choice, to unquestioningly believe and parrot his every word. And I doubt the people who listen to him know anything about Quakers, except that they aren’t rightwing Christians like themselves.
Now, isn’t it about time cocky Karl got indicted?
I heard that bit on NPR also. He sounded like a daddy when confronted with a child’s question he doesn’t want to answer (’cause I said so!’). He sure wasn’t making an argument. He just said, that while he respected certain people for thinking as they did, they were just flat wrong.
He didn’t say why they were wrong. He didn’t mention any alternatives to spying on citizens. He just wanted us to believe that they were the grownups and that we should just nod our heads and go along with them .. and that we should accept their wise rebuke.
So, Rove is apparently a genius at stringing together simple declarative sentences, refusing to support them, and then claiming there’s no other answer. Looking at the evidence how this person operates; I’d have to say that Rove’s genius is in being a bully
I feel a lot a like a broken record (Sidebar: In another 20 years, will anyone really understand that phrase, since everyone will only have knowledge of CDs and MP3/iPod-style devices?), repeating this same point over and over again:
Even in the heat of the present moment, a disappointingly large percentage of Americans are quite happy to sign away their freedoms (just what is it that Bush is supposedly protecting, anyway?) in return for a feeling of greater security. And of course, a feeling is all it is, or we wouldn’t still be getting such poor grades from the members of the 9-11 Commission. Recent polls appear to show that fully half of our population is willing to give up their rights and freedoms because it’s the only way to fight those nasty terrorists. It’s hard not to feel despair in the face of such willful stupidity by my fellow citizens. . .
I posted part of this in another forum
I read O’Conner’s opinion, and, although IANAL, it seems fairly obvious that Hamdi vs Rumsfeld does not give the authority to perform warrrantless wiretaps.
First off, it is not the wiretapping, it is the warrantless wiretapping. The administration could still have performed the wiretapping, and provided a request for a warrant 72 hours later. They elected not to perform that minimal bureaucratic procedure.
To cite O’Connor in her opinion of Hamdi vs Rumsfeld:
In other words, wiretapping is not illegal and permissable. Wiretapping without a warrant is illegal, as it increases the risk of erroneous (and potential for nefarious) deprivation of liberty under the Constitution.
The burden imposed on the administration to request warrants, thereby reducing the undue deprivation of liberty is minimal, with no change in the ability of the administration to wage the war.
The key question that I see, if this ever gets to court, is what is the undue burden the warrants placed on the administration. Because that is what they will have to argue to the courts, that the burden of complying with the law is too great to be able to maintain the burden of fighting a war under Section 2 of the Constitution.
It’s an argument I think they will lose.
Even the Supremes would be 7-2 against it (not sure about Thomas and Alito), with even Scalia, probably saying that warrants would still be necessary.
Now getting back to the original post, you are correct. The only reason why the administration would want to keep the names secret from the court, is that they are eaveasdropping on people outside of the boundaries of the war.
As posted by someone a while back, concerning when it was asked on a news show if the White House was spying on reporters, particularly Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who has been critical of this administration at times.
Amanpour may have occasional contacts with nefarious characters in the mideast in the course of her reporting. That could make her a subject of surveillance. Of course, her husband was an advisor to John Kerry during his presidential bid.
Coincidence?
I have yet to be convinced that anyone yet has a surefire way to get this into the courts. After looking at the lawsuits filed this past Tuesday by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, I’m not at all sure as to whether the plaintiffs have adequately addressed the issue of standing to bring these suits. That is almost certain to be among the first defenses raised by the NSA and co-defendants. Merely asserting a “well-founded belief that their communications are being intercepted” is quite likely not going to be enough in the face of a motion to dismiss for lack of standing under the relevant acts.
There may have to be a limited period of jurisdictional discovery to resolve this, but if it turns out that there is no evidence that any of the named plaintiffs here were directly targeted, the court may conclude that they suffered no harm and thus lack the capacity to sue. We’ll have to see what comes of this.
Good point, but doesn’t standing start the moment you know, or should have known, that you may have been injured? Otherwise, cancer survivors from asbestos (years ago) would have no standing to sue.
In the meantime, they could request an immediate “cease and desist” injunction from the courts (am not a lawyer, as is probably painfully obvious at this point).
Yes, but in these instances, the named plaintiffs are proceeding on the basis that they may have been improperly spied upon. They key point — as you mention above — is “the moment you know, or should have known, that you may have been injured.” It is likely that the initial defense by the government will be that unless the plaintiff can legitimately claim that that they were the subjects of the illegal wiretaps, these groups (and individuals) suffered no direct injury or harm. [The analogy for asbestos suits would be that merely alleging that a person worked for Johns Manville is not sufficient; a potential plaintiff would have to show that s/he was exposed to asbestos as a result of their employment.]
Until the question of whether these particular parties have proper standing is resolved, it would be very unlikely that a court would issue any sort of “cease and desist” order, restraining order, or declaratory judgment. Thus, I suspect that there might be limited rounds of discovery in each of these suits for the purpose of determining whether the named plaintiffs were specifically targeted by the NSA program. If that limited evidence were to show that neither the ACLU nor CCR as institutions (or, say, Christopher Hitchens or Maria LaHood as individuals) were targets of the NSA, then the courts would essentially be obligated to dismiss these lawsuits.
Until a plaintiff can be found who was actually spied upon (and if you think the government will blithely release that information pursuant to a FOIA request, boy, have you got another thing coming to you) is able to bring a claim here, it is entirely possible that the courts would be powerless to act.
I don’t want to be perceived as throwing cold water on this entire scenario (of suing the government), but rather am trying to describe how it might possibly play out.
If al qaeda is calling someone. That means they only monitor incoming calls?
Republicans live in a post-9/11 world, a world of their own creation. If they had not been asleep at the wheel pre-9/11 there would have been no 9/11.
hate to be the devil’s advocate but: rove is a genius. an evil one, but still a genius. he is “framing the debate”. that’s his forte:
“democrats are living in a pre-9/11 world. republicans are living in a post-9/11 world.”
you can’t make it any simpler than that. it’s pure bullshit. a total lie. but it panders to the prejudices and bias of not only die-hard republicans but more than a few independents. it’s not the truth but it will be repeated thousands of times, aired by the mainstream media and it may well be accepted as “reality”, thanks to tweetie, press the meat guy, to say nothing of the attack dogs at fox, rush limbaugh, etc.
he said this with his “nice guy” voice, the benevolent massa. “you know, they mean well. they can’t help it if they’re congenitally incapable of recognizing the way the world is. we know what’s best. don’t be too hard on them.” etc. etc.
the democrats, the progressives, the independents need to find somebody who can frame the debate and the issues as cleverly as rove. otherwise they eat our lunch. it does us no good to complain about how stupid the public is. that’s self-pity. self-pity is a guaranteed loser.
we may hate him but rove is not an idiot. he knows how to communicate. he got w. elected. TWICE. it wasn’t easy to do this. it wasn’t an accident.
it may be possible to beat rove at his own game. but this will not be done unless we respect him for the formidable enemy that he is.