The Best Thing I’ve Read Yet on the NSA Story…
…comes from Mickey Kaus:
Aren’t the parameters of the great eavesdropping debate becoming clearer?
1) The administration bypassed the special FISA court, not because it would somehow have been too time consuming to obtain warrants, but because warrants wouldn’t have been granted under the “probable cause” standard;
2) the warrants wouldn’t have been granted because the wiretaps were quasi-data-mining wiretaps, trolling phone calls of 10% likely suspects for tipoff phrases like “Brooklyn Bridge;”
3) that’s probably illegal;
4) but it’s also probably a good way to stop terror plots–it hardly presents a “false choice;”
5) the solution is to make it explicitly legal–lower the standard for search warrants, allow mass warrants for whole bundles of phone calls, while retaining some judicial supervision.
… Explicit legalization seems the obvious solution because the “privacy” interest involved–the danger that government has “listened in on some people who turned out not to pose a threat”–is, if not trivial, several orders of magnitude lower than the threat itself.
Well said indeed…read the rest here…
Well, it’s certainly a better idea than allowing Bush to just break the law as he sees fit.
However, what happens if you are one of the thousands of people who say “Brooklyn Bridge” over the phone each day? You know, like, “Just turn left after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.” Or, “Let’s meet at the Brooklyn Bridge to finish that job we spoke about.” What happens then? Do federal agents visit your workplace and ask questions? Do they obtain a court order to listen in on all of your calls?
Who determines what the key phrases are? “Brooklyn Bridge” is “in”. OK. How about “hate America”? “Anti-war protest”? “Palestine”?
If we follow Kaus’ advice, we will need to hire a hell of a lot more federal agents to follow up on all of this “suspicious” activity.
And for more profiles in political courage, check out AP’s latest story:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PATRIOT_ACT?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Harry Reid and his ilk once again back down from a real debate on the Patriot Act – I agree that it’s time for a real debate here, but they’re gutless wonders for trying to have it both ways, as usual.
Come on, guys – let’s have that filibuster, and we’ll see where everyone stands on the issues, once and for all. No more bloviating, let’s put the whole thing to a vote – right here, right now. If not, then it’s just another hollow posture aka the Murtha Resolution.
Joe, you’re beating a straw horse. Or something. So far as I know, the numbers monitored were taken off of Al-Qaeda computer lists, and the call themselves were international, either to or from the United States. Hence Kaus’ mention of “10 percent likely suspects.” That’s not everybody. If somebody in New York were calling an overseas number on an Al-Qaeda list and telling the other party to “turn left at the Brooklyn Bridge,” then, yes, I would be concerned. Flying down from Boston, you’d turn left at the Brooklyn Bridge to get to the World Trade Center.
All things considered, Kaus’ suggestion of revising the legal markers for this procedure seems sensible. Probably not feasible, in the current climate, but still sensible. Why doesn’t Mickey Kaus run for public office? I wouldn’t vote for him—we disagree on any number of issues—but he’s a smart Democrat who thinks things through and seldom resorts to talking points. They could use a lot more people like that.
utron,
They may initially be checking up on 10% likely suspects (defined how?), but those subjects have to be speaking to someone else when they talk on the phone. So what happens when that someone else is you, because your neighborhood Lebanese take out restaurant owner happens to have a double life as an al Qaeda plant? How long do you think it will take to go from 10% of al Qaeda suspected terrorists to 10% of Hamas, then CAIR, then lawyers of terrorists, then you for ordering Lebanese food a bit too often…..
But I’m all for revisiting this law in light of new technology. But let’s do it in Congress, not in the Oval Office.
“Flying down from Boston, you’d turn left at the Brooklyn Bridge to get to the World Trade Center.”
Actually, utron, you’d wind up heading out to Long Island, so maybe we should encourage them to turn left.
But seriously, Joe, in the scenario you raise, where do you see it ending? I mean, if the humorless guys in suits pay me a visit because I said “Brooklyn Bridge” in a conversation a few degrees of separation from some suspected AQ terrorist, do you believe I’m likely to shipped off to Gitmo without ever having a chance to point out I was giving somebody directions to the corner deli?
I can agree with Kaus that what we need is to revisit the law on this matter. But it doesn’t help to look at the law squarely if we’ve got to cut through the “Bush is coming to get you” rhetoric. I mean, if this stuff is resulting in Predator drones firing Hellfire missiles into Brooklyn because somebody uttered the fatal keyword into a phone, that’s one thing. If the problem is the idea of government agents listening in to your conversation gives you the heebie-jeebies, it’s hard for me to get exorcised about that.
Joe, I think the “10 percent” meant a one-in-ten chance that if you were chatting on a line tagged in an Al Qaeda database, you might well have information worth pursuing. Under the circumstances, that seems like a reasonable lead to follow up. I don’t mean to minimize the questions of oversight and due process, but it seems a bit silly, even heartless, to argue that they outweigh the consequences of a successful terrorist attack. The well-worn Robert Jackson quote about constitutions and suicide pacts seems relevant here.
Likewise, the slippery slope argument seems unpersuasive here. Frankly, I would hope that most of the groups you named are being watched by security agencies. (On the issue of lawyers for terrorists, I’ll restrain myself from bringing up Lynne Stewart.) If eating Middle Eastern food lands me on that list, then it’s already too late. A Pakistani Muslim friend of mine had his restaurant torched by some local retards right after 9-11, and my friends and I made a point of eating there regularly in the weeks afterward. (He’s still in business.) If he turns out to be an AlQaeda mole, then I’m a lousy judge of character. The NSA can monitor our conversations, but I doubt the results will land me in Gitmo.
Finally, if you’re flying down from Boston, wouldn’t you be approaching Manhattan over Queens? And wouldn’t a left turn at the Brooklyn Bridge result in your heading downtown, toward the site of the former World Trade Center? I would discuss this further, but I don’t want to use any code phrases that would set the NSA breathing down Mark’s neck.;)
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“Finally, if you’re flying down from Boston, wouldn’t you be approaching Manhattan over Queens? And wouldn’t a left turn at the Brooklyn Bridge result in your heading downtown, toward the site of the former World Trade Center?”
I guess if you were coming from that approach, a left makes sense. I was thinking of coming straight from the north and heading down the East River, at which point making a left would take you away from Manhattan.
Either way, I’d just like to say for all the various data miners that I’ve got a picture of Ronald Reagan in my desk drawer, so don’t worry, I’m not in Al Qaeda.
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suspicious mole
Did you know that moles are more common among women? Read on for