Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 83 Editor's Choice: 1
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@omooex
[Read the article: NYT front page reports on McCain's reversal on spying, executive power]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]2. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report: There are virtually no Democrats who looked at this data and didn't come to the same conclusions that Bush and co. did.
Um, no. "There were virtually no Democrats who looked at this data" would be correct, in a sense. The full, unredacted NIE was made available only to the gang of four - the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The ranking member of the Senate IC, Bob Graham, spoke regularly and forcefully against the notion that the intelligence supported any notion of an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein.
The partially redacted NIE, unavailable to the general public, was made available to members of Congress in, IIRC a secure reading area. Bob Graham pled with them to go and check it out. Some read it, some (notoriously Senator Clinton) instead read the political tea leaves, decided that the war train was leaving the station with or without them, and did not bother. Of those Democrats who bothered, a clear majority voted against the AUMF.
Yes, there were a number of Democratic tools who, afraid of sounding "soft on terror", ignored the evidence, or more accurately ignored the lack of evidence, and parroted the Administration line in hopes of not being attacked in the next month's elections. That doesn't mean they were actually fooled. It only means they were successfully bullied.
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No one has explained the "worrisome gap"
[Read the article: NYT circulates fear-mongering claims on FISA debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I doubt that the "worrisome gap" is as simple and trivial as we've been led to believe, and as it sounds like Glenn believes. If anyone has ever explained, in terms that are anything like clear, just what it was that the FISA court objected to, I haven't seen it.
What we're expected to believe is that the FISA court found out that some of the foreign-to-foreign calls that were tapped happened to run through the US at some point along the way, and then these inveterate rubber stampers stood up in high dudgeon and cried, "You can't do that! It's a plain violation of the law!"
I don't buy it for a second. It would have been out of character. And I can't imagine how they would have learned that the communication passed through US switches. The NSA sets up a tap on a phone in Marrakesh, and listens there to a conversation with someone in Islamabad. The NSA probably is savvy enough to take note of any packet-switching and routing information they can along with the contents of the call. But under what imaginable scenario would they be sharing that routing information, or be asked to share it, with the FISA court?
What they're not telling us, I submit, is that the FISA court knew these foreign to foreign calls were passing through US switches because that court learned of the fact that NSA was hoovering up every call from anywhere to anywhere, foreign or domestic, passing through those switches, and then taking special note of those between foreign contact points of interest.
There is no way to fix that "worrisome gap" without putting a stamp of approval on the wholesale hoovering. And that's what this whole charade is about.
If one of you can document where my interpretation of the FISA court's objection has been ruled out, I'd be deeply grateful, because I'd rather be wrong.
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@lastnamechosen
[Read the article: NYT circulates fear-mongering claims on FISA debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for this post. It goes a long way toward answering the question I was asking a few posts back (Was it merely foreign-to-foreign intercepts that the FISA court was objecting to?)
It's obscure as all getout, which is undoubtedly the intent. One cannot easily tell from the language whether it authorizes the government to force the installation of software that will sweep up every last communication going through a particular portal, or not.
In particular, this language is neatly balanced:
(1) immediately provide the Government with all information, facilities, and assistance necessary to accomplish the acquisition in such a manner as will protect the secrecy of the acquisition and produce a minimum of interference with the services that such person is providing to the target;
One could easily argue that all that's "necessary to accomplish the acquisition" is for the telecom to weed out the foreign-to-foreign calls, and pass just their content on to the NSA. If one were allowed to argue on behalf of the citizenry before the FISA court, which one is of course not allowed to do.
Meanwhile, the gummint can argue that the weeding process would be insufficiently "immediate", and the statute therefore requires the telecom provider to simply install the pipeline that firehoses everything down to NSA headquarters. If too many FISA judges object, they serve at the pleasure of Justice Roberts, and they can be replaced.
Am I reading this (and yourself) right? IANAL, and sometimes I just can't get a good view of the mirrors for all the smoke.
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@L.W.M., way way back
[Read the article: George Bush's latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some people are just addicted to the Political Outrage of the Day.
I was around to be outraged by the Vietnam War, by Watergate, by the VRWC's attack on the Presidency, by the AUMF vote, by the beginning of the Iraq war, by the elevation of Alito, by the reversal of Brown vs. Board of Education. And countless lesser atrocities.
I have never been as angry as I am today. This is not the Outrage of the Day. This, this level of inexorable, calm, deliberate, and profoundly pointless betrayal by Reid and Pelosi, people I once trusted as allies, is the outrage of my lifetime.
Not to say I'm not adult enough to realize that electing Obama remains essential, however disappointing and weak-kneed he proves to be in the present crisis. But for the love of all that once was holy about America, L.W.M., don't bloody trivialize what's about to happen.