Hysteria From The Civil Liberties Chicken Littles
(UPDATED-----> Scroll down)
Earlier today, Marcie dove into the USA Today in depth; her opinion is noted, and intelligent. She also shares the same opinion that many in the blogosphere do. "Yes, the NSA is doing it's job; isn't that what we pay them to do?" But the nutters have jumped into the fray, and someone forgot to tell them the pool was drained. They're hitting concrete.
America didn't throw a hissy fit over the NSA terrorist surveillance program. As a matterof fact, they support the program. So, the Left got no legs on that matter, and the center-right legal scholars crushed any arguments that the Left had that the program violated the Fourth Amendment. Now those same nuts are stating the same thing about this program. They have no clue what they're talking about.
PROVIDED that the program's details are as the USA Today presented them, then there is no Fourth Amendment question or argument. It won't stand muster. These phone records aren't obtained directly from the phone companies themselves. This is a, as Marcie put it this afternoon, third-party acquisition; no different than any company obtaining information about consumers.
In addition to the precedent set by the federal courts comes this simple fact, and it's somethng that can't be dissuaded:
"The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." --Article II, Section 1
"The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States..." --Article II, Section 2
Yes, this argument still exists, and it's still just as sound as the first day we presented it. This is something that many on the Left don't get. We are at war, and during such times the president is given a level of latitude that he normally doesn't possess. Now to be fair, President Clinton was not involved in a war when he appropriated the NSA to begin surveillance of America after the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah federal building. But, at his behest, it was considered an "emergency" which also activated limited powers. No one made a big deal about Clinton's use of the NSA, or Reagan's, or Bush 41's, or Carter's.
No. All of a sudden everyone is "surprised" that such action could be taken. They are "outraged" that the president isn't constrained by FISA, or any other court. Of course not. FISA received a spanking from the Court of Review in Sealed Case. It was thoroughly chastised for implementing measures that the Patriot Act had removed from the process of obtaining a FISA warrant. In addition, they stated that the president was well within the law in performing the warrantless surveillance.
For all the nutters out there, quit runing around. The sky isn't falling. The Fourth Amendment doesn't apply. And despite the insanity from Patrick Leahy (below), the Left doesn't have anything to stand on when it comes to this argument.
"Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?" said Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything."
No, Sen. Leahy, the president didn't say that. Nor did anyone in the media say this. However the Left seems to think that somewhere that was uttered. It wasn't. Let me give you a loose idea of how this works.
The NSA looks for patterns in phone calls. Calls originating here going abroad, and calls coming in from abroad. We have access to a host of intelligence from al Qaeda, including phone numbers and records (and no, we didn't obtain a warrant to get those, either). They take those numbers, and compare them to the numbers in the United States. They track the amount of times that certain numbers call others, noting the time or whatever, and compare it to their records. Names, addresses, and personal information like Social Security numbers aren't being watched. The habits of the callers, the routes and routers the calls go through, and things like that are.
Further, they can plug in a phone number, such as Jose Padilla's, or Ayman al-Zawahiri's, and find out who they have been talking to in the United States. If they have a match, they can obtain a warrant through FISA and begin looking at someone here in the United States. Now, if it's a wrong number (I'm not kidding, I've already seen this excuse thrown out amongst the Left on the 'Net), we'll end the surveillance. But we don't move on surveillance until we're sure we have a match.
This is a base level program in trying to locate our enemy here in America. Why? Because they've tried to kill us once before, and they're not giving up. For them, the fight is still ongoing. They killed 3000 on 11 September. I think they pretty much conveyed to us that they don't like us, and in doing so set us on a path to protect America. We could have taken their route--the route taken by President Clinton--which was through the justice system. The problem is these people could care less about our justice system. Moussaoui is laughing his @$$ off in jail right now. Until he finally croaks from old age, he is going to have better treatment in prison than he would be on the battlefield.
But that's all there is. The program isn't violating anything legal. It's no more "harmful" to our rights than a company collecting consumer data. The program is benign in its search by disregarding the basics of information (name, address, personal info). And it's being done because we have an enemy that wants us dead, and they have already shown the ease with which they move within our country secretly. This program would be helpful if it hadn't just been splashed across the front page of a MSM outlet. (What a bunch of idiots! Do these people not understand that our enemy is the only set of subscribers they have left, virtually?) They're read by our enemy. And in the USA Today piece, they revealed that Qwest is one of the phone servers that refused to work with them. Great. Wonderful. Hell, why don't we just hand out enemy the knife to twist in our backs?
Publius II
UPDATE: 4:44p.m. AZ Time
I just ran across this from NRO's Corner. Tim Graham offers this up:
The networks cranked up the hype machine this morning. ABC began: “NSA bombshell!” NBC found a “shocking new report!” CBS called it a “stunning report.” All three were responding to the new USA Today story that the government has collected a database of the nation’s phone records since 9/11. One problem: the New York Times reported this last Christmas eve. Clearly to the three DNC-TV networks, newness is overrated, but “shocking” new details of Bush supposedly violating your civil liberties just never lose their appeal.
MRC’s Rich Noyes wondered: “Given that another government agency — the IRS — maintains information on American citizens’ employment, banking, investments, mortgages, charitable contributions and even any declared medical expenses, this hardly seems like a major assault on personal liberty.” Ooh! Shocking new report! The IRS has a database with your personal information in it! That story is just waiting to be discovered.
OK. I'll buy that. When does the Supreme Court want to entertain the idea that what the IRS is doing is wrong? Anyone? I didn't think so. But Mr. Noyes hits the nail in the same way I did. That's why I said this was harmless. It was benign. They're doing the same thing that the IRS does, or that any company does. Anyone have those discount cards from grocery stores? (If you have the card, you get the discounted price; you know them.) What do you think the store is doing? They're gathering information on what you buy. They can better gauge their demographics, and can add things that sell well to a sale. That's what regional control does for a company, and that's what they use to do it. It's their own database. And most of those grocery stores have more than just how frequently we buy french-cut green beans, or the amount of DiGiorno pizzas you're scarfing down in a week. They'vce got your name, your address, and based on your grocery bill, they can make an assessment of how much money you make in a year.
That last bit is supposition, but it could be done. That's a grocery store. The IRS has more. The NSA is data mining. there's nothing illegal about it. God, someone calm these nutters down. I swear to God that some of these people (Patrick Leahy, Jack Cafferty, et al) have their panties in a knot. You'd think, with some of the overreaction going on in the Left today, that the greatest crime ever purpetrated by a government had just been committed.
Publius II
(UPDATED-----> Scroll down)
Earlier today, Marcie dove into the USA Today in depth; her opinion is noted, and intelligent. She also shares the same opinion that many in the blogosphere do. "Yes, the NSA is doing it's job; isn't that what we pay them to do?" But the nutters have jumped into the fray, and someone forgot to tell them the pool was drained. They're hitting concrete.
America didn't throw a hissy fit over the NSA terrorist surveillance program. As a matterof fact, they support the program. So, the Left got no legs on that matter, and the center-right legal scholars crushed any arguments that the Left had that the program violated the Fourth Amendment. Now those same nuts are stating the same thing about this program. They have no clue what they're talking about.
PROVIDED that the program's details are as the USA Today presented them, then there is no Fourth Amendment question or argument. It won't stand muster. These phone records aren't obtained directly from the phone companies themselves. This is a, as Marcie put it this afternoon, third-party acquisition; no different than any company obtaining information about consumers.
In addition to the precedent set by the federal courts comes this simple fact, and it's somethng that can't be dissuaded:
"The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." --Article II, Section 1
"The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States..." --Article II, Section 2
Yes, this argument still exists, and it's still just as sound as the first day we presented it. This is something that many on the Left don't get. We are at war, and during such times the president is given a level of latitude that he normally doesn't possess. Now to be fair, President Clinton was not involved in a war when he appropriated the NSA to begin surveillance of America after the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah federal building. But, at his behest, it was considered an "emergency" which also activated limited powers. No one made a big deal about Clinton's use of the NSA, or Reagan's, or Bush 41's, or Carter's.
No. All of a sudden everyone is "surprised" that such action could be taken. They are "outraged" that the president isn't constrained by FISA, or any other court. Of course not. FISA received a spanking from the Court of Review in Sealed Case. It was thoroughly chastised for implementing measures that the Patriot Act had removed from the process of obtaining a FISA warrant. In addition, they stated that the president was well within the law in performing the warrantless surveillance.
For all the nutters out there, quit runing around. The sky isn't falling. The Fourth Amendment doesn't apply. And despite the insanity from Patrick Leahy (below), the Left doesn't have anything to stand on when it comes to this argument.
"Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?" said Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything."
No, Sen. Leahy, the president didn't say that. Nor did anyone in the media say this. However the Left seems to think that somewhere that was uttered. It wasn't. Let me give you a loose idea of how this works.
The NSA looks for patterns in phone calls. Calls originating here going abroad, and calls coming in from abroad. We have access to a host of intelligence from al Qaeda, including phone numbers and records (and no, we didn't obtain a warrant to get those, either). They take those numbers, and compare them to the numbers in the United States. They track the amount of times that certain numbers call others, noting the time or whatever, and compare it to their records. Names, addresses, and personal information like Social Security numbers aren't being watched. The habits of the callers, the routes and routers the calls go through, and things like that are.
Further, they can plug in a phone number, such as Jose Padilla's, or Ayman al-Zawahiri's, and find out who they have been talking to in the United States. If they have a match, they can obtain a warrant through FISA and begin looking at someone here in the United States. Now, if it's a wrong number (I'm not kidding, I've already seen this excuse thrown out amongst the Left on the 'Net), we'll end the surveillance. But we don't move on surveillance until we're sure we have a match.
This is a base level program in trying to locate our enemy here in America. Why? Because they've tried to kill us once before, and they're not giving up. For them, the fight is still ongoing. They killed 3000 on 11 September. I think they pretty much conveyed to us that they don't like us, and in doing so set us on a path to protect America. We could have taken their route--the route taken by President Clinton--which was through the justice system. The problem is these people could care less about our justice system. Moussaoui is laughing his @$$ off in jail right now. Until he finally croaks from old age, he is going to have better treatment in prison than he would be on the battlefield.
But that's all there is. The program isn't violating anything legal. It's no more "harmful" to our rights than a company collecting consumer data. The program is benign in its search by disregarding the basics of information (name, address, personal info). And it's being done because we have an enemy that wants us dead, and they have already shown the ease with which they move within our country secretly. This program would be helpful if it hadn't just been splashed across the front page of a MSM outlet. (What a bunch of idiots! Do these people not understand that our enemy is the only set of subscribers they have left, virtually?) They're read by our enemy. And in the USA Today piece, they revealed that Qwest is one of the phone servers that refused to work with them. Great. Wonderful. Hell, why don't we just hand out enemy the knife to twist in our backs?
Publius II
UPDATE: 4:44p.m. AZ Time
I just ran across this from NRO's Corner. Tim Graham offers this up:
The networks cranked up the hype machine this morning. ABC began: “NSA bombshell!” NBC found a “shocking new report!” CBS called it a “stunning report.” All three were responding to the new USA Today story that the government has collected a database of the nation’s phone records since 9/11. One problem: the New York Times reported this last Christmas eve. Clearly to the three DNC-TV networks, newness is overrated, but “shocking” new details of Bush supposedly violating your civil liberties just never lose their appeal.
MRC’s Rich Noyes wondered: “Given that another government agency — the IRS — maintains information on American citizens’ employment, banking, investments, mortgages, charitable contributions and even any declared medical expenses, this hardly seems like a major assault on personal liberty.” Ooh! Shocking new report! The IRS has a database with your personal information in it! That story is just waiting to be discovered.
OK. I'll buy that. When does the Supreme Court want to entertain the idea that what the IRS is doing is wrong? Anyone? I didn't think so. But Mr. Noyes hits the nail in the same way I did. That's why I said this was harmless. It was benign. They're doing the same thing that the IRS does, or that any company does. Anyone have those discount cards from grocery stores? (If you have the card, you get the discounted price; you know them.) What do you think the store is doing? They're gathering information on what you buy. They can better gauge their demographics, and can add things that sell well to a sale. That's what regional control does for a company, and that's what they use to do it. It's their own database. And most of those grocery stores have more than just how frequently we buy french-cut green beans, or the amount of DiGiorno pizzas you're scarfing down in a week. They'vce got your name, your address, and based on your grocery bill, they can make an assessment of how much money you make in a year.
That last bit is supposition, but it could be done. That's a grocery store. The IRS has more. The NSA is data mining. there's nothing illegal about it. God, someone calm these nutters down. I swear to God that some of these people (Patrick Leahy, Jack Cafferty, et al) have their panties in a knot. You'd think, with some of the overreaction going on in the Left today, that the greatest crime ever purpetrated by a government had just been committed.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 4:56 PM
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