Like many of you, I read the AP’s article this morning – White House Gives Details on Surveillance – on the report given by the administration, revealing to a congressional committee more of the NSA secret program on calls from overseas to the USA. It seems some Congresspeople were assuaged, others still doubtful. No surprise there. But then I read this:
Said California Rep. Jane Harman, the panel’s top Democrat, “The ice is melting, and we are making progress.”
While Harman continues to support the program, she said she remains uncomfortable with the administration’s legal justification. Harman said she believes the administration should have used the court processes set up under the FISA law and gotten warrants before eavesdropping on Americans.
Of course the AP is not quoting directly from Harman in the latter part and could be misrepresenting her, but I am confused here. How is obtaining warrants in a timely manner really possible in the modern world of near instananeous satellite communications? Unless these warrants are available by demand on beeper, thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of people could be dead before the warrant was issued. I am completely in favor of civil liberties, not to mention basic privacy rights, but this is no simple decision. It’s a matter of life and death.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
16 Comments
1. flenser:Presumably Harman also thinks that police officers should be required to obtain a search warrant before pointing their radar guns at passing cars.
This seems to be analogous to what is going on with the NSA program, screening a lot of people to isolate a few of them. Of course by the time a warrant is obtained the car may be hundreds of miles away and parked.
I don’t doubt that there are some hyper-libertarians who would claim that any goverment surveilance is illegal, but I’m pretty sure that Harman is arguing in bad faith here and is a “situational libertarian”.
Feb 9, 2006 - 9:14 am 2. jedrury:Harmen was on the NewsHour yapping away along with Senator Dimwit from South Carolina, Lindsay Graham. Now, there are two weak supporters
Feb 9, 2006 - 9:15 am 3. Plainslow:of the president’s war making powers. The media is latching on to these wavering GOP senators (Spector included) and contending that they are demanding more consulting with Congress, more oversight, and the intervention of a judge to pass on these applications. Go back to the AG’s clear testimony to the Senate and read Cheney’s interview with Jim Lehrer and one can easily conclude this is a clever fox trot the White House is conducting to sooth the ardor of this Congressional putsch in its power grab. Prediction: the Administration will not give in on its basic rights to use all available means.
I think we all need to worry about this more. Especially those of us who regularly read blogs. As a good freind of mine said, “we all call overseas everytime we call Dell support”.
Feb 9, 2006 - 9:42 am 4. Ron:“The ice is melting, and we are making progress.” While Ms. Harmon is waiting for the ice to melt, there just might be a detonation at Long Beach where all the container ships come in that will melt ice cubes in her drink. Just what is it that they don’t understand about the enemies lines of communication and getting a getting a search warrant that is slower than getting a drivers license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Don’t our legislators use cell phones? It sounds like they don’t have a clue as to the speed of communication in the 21st. Century and what a 25 megaton bomb would do to a major city. Could it be that like Senator Kennedy they just drink to much and have lost control of reality and don’t know what is happening? A major question is, do they know the nature of the Islamic/Fascist threat or do they really need to see the fire ball over New York to be serious? Democrats can be dangerous to your health as well as Republicans who just don’t get it.
Feb 9, 2006 - 9:46 am 5. David Thomson:ìExplain this to me…î
What is there to explain? Bill Clinton is a warm and cuddly Democrat who loves his fellow human beings. George W. Bush is a Republican scum bag and a greater threat to world peace than Osama bin Ladin. Nothing more needs to be added. This is the way these people look at the world.
Jane Harman may be worrying about keeping her Democratic allies happy. She is not exactly popular with the Daily Kos crowd—and most likely will be targeted for political destruction.
Feb 9, 2006 - 9:59 am 6. Anne:I truly find it difficult to understand what the concerns are really about. And astonishing that anyone would rather risk a delay (think about the time frame from Boston to NY, in a plane). When someone calls Dell or Dell calls us, the number is clearly from/to Dell. A system this sophisticated can certainly distinguish between plain old ordinary (i.e. harmless) “overseas” calls and those from/to people of concern.
Feb 9, 2006 - 10:05 am 7. RogerA:I am starting to see this whole NSA thing as a struggle between the Legislative and Executive and executive branches for power–yes, there are Republican/Democratic political issues, and ideological “left and right” issues however useless those terms are becoming. There isnt much recourse for the Legislative branches unless they (1) want to cut off funding for the program and the recognize the inanity of that response in an election year–cutting a program a majority of Americans seem to think is OK; (2) Revising Legislation or the Authority to Use Military Force and sending it to the President for signature (surely a veto); trying to impeach the President in the House (too many Rs and besides would the Ds really be happy with Dick Cheney if they got what they wanted; or hope the courts deal with the issue–and absent some specific information from someone who has been wronged by the program, they would have a hard time finding someone wronged–and ultimately, the court tends to avoid separation of powers issues and if pushed tends to defer to the executive in times of national emergency. Finally–the Ds are dealing with a lame duck president who doesnt appear to be content to roll over.
I think Ms Harman is going to see very slow progress indeed, because neither the Legislative Branch, nor the Democrats seem to have a lot of options.
I
Feb 9, 2006 - 10:10 am 8. Plainslow:It was a joke Anne. Sorry
Feb 9, 2006 - 10:40 am 9. photoncourier.blogspot.com:I wonder precisely what kind of warrant they would like to see, under what circumstances. For example: if NSA indeed has systems that scan traffic for keywords, would they want a warrant that defines the specific keywords the system can look for? What if interception of traffic on certain kinds of comm links requires recording of *all* traffic on those links, which recordings can later be analyzed to find specific calls? Would they regard that as a violation of the rights of everyone whose calls were carried on those links and whose conversations were therefore recorded?
I don’t denigrate the right to privacy or the importance of civil liberties; however, I see little understanding on the part of the Democrats of the real complexities of these issues.
Feb 9, 2006 - 10:45 am 10. Cynic:Now here’s an American who could have been phoning some nice guys:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/010124.php
“An American citizen held in Iraq since 2004 allegedly worked with terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and helped plan insurgent attacks on foreigners in Iraq, NBC News has learned.”
Feb 9, 2006 - 10:57 am 11. zefal:Is there any doubt that many democrats have wet dreams of the US mainland being attacked again during Bush’s presidency so they can then argue (some more) that the war on terror was all for naught.
Anything that helps prevent this from happening they are going to attack for this reason.
Feb 9, 2006 - 11:11 am 12. stumbley:By the way…anyone who is talking on a cell phone and thinks that their conversation is “private” has no clue how a cell phone operates. It’s a little radio transmitter, for heaven’s sake! ANYONE can listen in with the right equipment.
And of course, now that they’ve been briefed, now that the program has been hopelessly compromised, Harman and the other congresspeople are “okay” with it…
Feb 9, 2006 - 11:20 am 13. Sandy P:– How is obtaining warrants in a timely manner really possible in the modern world of near instananeous satellite communications?–
Instant gratification crowd.
Same thing’s happening w/this new medicare drug policy.
Enrolling millions of people and it should work seamlessly from day 1.
Feb 9, 2006 - 12:47 pm 14. Sandy P:Did I read a headline correctly?
Remember the guy who got on the plane, trying to run away because his girlfriend/wife broke up w/him? And they pulled him off, IIRC??? It was last year.
He was making ricin, or was it someone else?
Feb 9, 2006 - 3:10 pm 15. lmg:This obsession with warrants is ridiculous. Now I suppose there will be efforts to make the warrant application/approval process nearly instantaneous. That will also make it meaningless, because the grantor will have no time for meaningful review. Why not just let the Executive branch do its job?
Feb 9, 2006 - 8:40 pm 16. orangebob:I don’t think timeliness is the issue since FISA allows electronic interception with the court’s approval after the fact. There may be an issue with the allowed 72 hours and the sheer bulk of requests swamping the FISA courts and the ability of the good guys to prepare mountains of documents.
A more important problem is that FISA is oriented toward existing legal methods of dealing with criminal behavior, but the real need is for interdiction of acts of war. Not the same thing. I think the analogy flensor makes with radar searches for speeding cars is apt. Posner made a similar argument on his blog and was roundly criticized by many lawyers, but then that’s what lawyers do. Congress wants to send lawyers to the fight when they need to send soldiers.
Feb 9, 2006 - 10:50 pm