NY Times Keeps On Keeping On

Cutting Through The Partisan Crap

Have you heard the hysteria going on claiming that President Bush has been illegally authorizing “officials” sneak in and listen to you doing your heavy breathing prattle on the telephone with your "significant other”

I, personally, wonder how much the government “officials” really like having to listen to conversations between people doing things like talking to their proctologists about colon polyps and hemorrhoids. And I’m sure that they certainly don’t enjoy recording and transcribing those mindless cell phone conversations that I hear one-half of while standing in the grocery store check out line behind some clueless moron.

So what is really the big deal here, you might wonder?

Well, let me distill this thing down for those of you that don’t have the time to do anything but listen to TV sound bites and read the headlines in the newspapers.

If I had to write an Executive Summary, it would contain just two words:

TOTAL BULLSHIT.

Having said that, let me supply you with some independent details so that you can form your own opinion.

About a year ago the NY Times found out about President Bush’s authorization of the use of electronic “eavesdropping” to intercept telephone communications and E-mails between US citizens and persons overseas suspected to have ties to al Qaeda and other terrorism groups. Technically this falls under the category of collecting “foreign intelligence, and it is only allowed on international communications or communications between the US and foreign locations.

This existence of this top secret program was illegally “leaked” by someone in the government or the CIA to the Times, but after meeting with the President and discussing the issue, the Times management and editors chose to not publish this non-story in the interest of national defense.

What really bothers me is that the “leaking” of this type of information is a serious federal crime, but typically, in their never ending quest for truth and justice, the NY Times isn’t interested in that part of the story—trashing Bush is their intentions and they are protecting their sources to the bitter end as a result. (Can you say “Valerie Plame”?)

The big deal here apparently is that the program, called the NSA Intercept program, did not require that the investigators and security agents wait three days to a week (or longer) to get a federal judge to issue a search warrant. When they found out that someone was suspected to be up to something that could affect national security, the Attorney General could implement the measures necessary to listen in on their communications and find out what was going on.

The idea seems reasonable enough to me, as long as the law allows it.

The really interesting thing is that this EXACT SAME THING has been done in at least three prior Presidential Administrations. Let me explain this assertion.

The first thing that you should know is that the applicable law, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, was passed by the US Congress under the auspices of Democratic President Jimmy Carter. The NY Times should be quite happy with that little detail.

On May 23, 1979 President Carter signed Executive Order 12939 allowing EXACTLY the same kind of surveillance that President Bush is criticized for today.

Among other things, the order said:

1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.

I don’t see any mention of requiring a judge to do electronic surveillance. Click on the link and go read it for yourself if you want to check me. Apparently Carter only chased foreigners with his order, but he could have used his order for at least 72 hours against Americans if he wanted to.

Next, Republican President Ronald Reagan produced Executive Order 12333 allowing Judgeless surveillance on December 4, 1981. His order stated:

2.5 ATTORNEY GENERAL APPROVAL

The Attorney General hereby is delegated the power to approve the use for intelligence purposes, within the United States or against a United States person abroad, of any technique for which a warrant would be required if undertaken for law enforcement purposes, provided that such techniques shall not be undertaken unless the Attorney General has determined in each case that there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Electronic surveillance, as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.), shall be conducted in accordance with that Act, as well as this Order.

See, once again Regan said that the Attorney General can order electronic surveillance without a judge—the same thing Bush says today. Click on the link and see for yourself. The key wording here is the difference between gathering “data to prosecute a crime” and gathering “intelligence for national security.”

And finally, citing the same federal law, media darling Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12949 dated February 9, 1995 stating this:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including sections 302 and 303 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("Act") (50 U.S.C. 1801,et seq.), as amended by Public Law 103- 359, and in order to provide for the authorization of physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes as set forth in the Act, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications
required by that section.

At the time that Clinton issued his rather nonspecific order (for instance, what exactly does a “physical search” entail) there was a bit of public debate as outlined at that time in The Washington Times:

“Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches
July 15, 1994

"The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers."

Click on the links, darn it, and check me out---I’m not making this stuff up.

Further, I would like to point out that I think that the “draft legislation” was a good example of the Congress previously having it’s chance to make this type of activity specifically subject to a judge’s approval, but the Congress didn’t act then and therefore the activity is still legal now.

So what are Harry Reid and the balance of the Democrats and media bitching about today? There is NOTHING to this story.

Having shown you how these prescedents, you have to wonder why last Friday the NY Times published the story in an article written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau.

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications”

Oh My (shudder)…the President SECRETLY authorized eavesdropping on AMERICANS…how about eavesdropping on illegal immigrants if we could understand what the heck they were saying?

Can SOMEONE honestly tell me what this uproar is about? Am I missing something?

Regardless, the proverbial feces has been hitting the fan ever since, and the most damning thing is that Times hasn’t bothered to publish the facts I just told you—that the Carter, Reagan and Clinton Administrations allowed EXACTLY THE SAME METHODS TO BE USED TO GATHER FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

In today’s edition the Times follows up with another article by the same two gentlemen.

In it you will still find no mention of similar prior programs, all they can do is talk about some accidental capture of purely domestic calls.

Boo hoo hoooooooo…Oh The Humanity.

As I said before this whole story—lock, stock, and barrel—is complete and utter BULLSHIT. If Bush had really broken the law the times would have wet their pants rushing the story to press no matter WHAT the white house asked them to do. Now they claim that they delayed it’s publication in “the interest of nation security.”

I have a question for the Times editors: “If they didn’t publish the story because it would hurt our security when they first learned of the NSA Intercept Program in 2004, why does publishing it this week not also risk hurting the USA’s security today?”

I’ll tell you the answer myself. The story has absolutely no underlying substance, the NY Times knows it, but they had to publish it this week because Bush’s popularity was soaring after the Iraqi election and another very significant thing was happening soon that they didn’t bother to tell you in any of their writing to date.

One of the story’s writers, NY Times Journalist James Risen, is publishing his new book The State of War in January and in this book he addresses this exact issue—the Bush Administration’s and the CIA’s data gathering methods used for foreign intelligence. Those familiar with the book say that, as would be expected from a NY Times writer, it provides a less than friendly point of view of President Bush.

I expect the hysteria to continue for months and CBS’s 60 Minutes to pick it up and bring James Risen on their show to televise his furrowed browed, long faced comments on the insidious, unpresidented attack on our personal privacy that is (not) happening under the Bush Administration.

Now where's my really big hammer...