What is Bush Hiding?
LARRY C. JOHNSON
Note from TM:
Larry and I worked together as consultants for the government on counterterrorism, and have been jointly and severally interviewed on the radio.
If you think Larry is being harsh on the administration, check out the January 29 New York Times editorial here. It termed the administration's defense of domestic spying "political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies."
I suppose the average American, one who has never held a security clearance or handled NSA intelligence, is inclined to cut George W. Bush some slack. Only a crazy person would argue that Al Qaeda terrorists have a right of privacy in the United States. But that, my friends, is a canard. The issue is not about giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Instead, does this President, hell, any President, have the right to unilaterally decide what does and does not constitute a threat to national security? We are a Republic founded on the principle that the power of the Federal Government is limited. It does not matter if George W. Bush is sincere or his intentions benign. What matters is whether he has chosen to ignore the Fourth Amendment because he, and he alone, has decided that the end justifies the means.See the rest of the article on Larry C. Johnson's blog, NO QUARTER. Mr. Johnson has worked with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, and is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management.
Note from TM:
Larry and I worked together as consultants for the government on counterterrorism, and have been jointly and severally interviewed on the radio.
If you think Larry is being harsh on the administration, check out the January 29 New York Times editorial here. It termed the administration's defense of domestic spying "political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies."
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6 Comments:
I'm puzzled. Are you a proponent of gathering intelligence? Is it that you are so concerned about our national security that you are pointing out flaws in our intelligence network, helping to construct a more effective, more efficient intelligence agency. That concern, and that cause would be commendable. Instead, I detect someone that has generalized the "problem" and narrowed its incriminating light on one man. Not George Tenent, not even Clinton, whose lax approach to intelligence spending left the CIA crippled at the time of 9/11. The blame, however, has fallen completely on the shoulders of the man who has increased intelligence spending the most in over 20 years, President Bush. The tone in your article indicates that this isn't really about national security, it's about taking pot shots at our President, in order to make absolutely sure that the administration is so bloody at the end of the term, that liberal candidates in the next election will be shooed in under the cloud of artificial wrongdoings of the Bush Administration.
Suppose John Kerry, the man who continues to join a crusade against the CIA, repeatedly urging cuts in intelligence spending, had that man been elected president; I couldn't imagine your disgust. I don't see how you can place any blame on Bush for intelligence failure. He has passed a budget that gives the CIA the money and resources to do their job Any shortcomings hence should be investigated not on the presidential level, but in the structure of the CIA itself.
It's interesting that President Bush has been so criticized on the one hand for not connecting the dots before 9/11 and on the other hand also being criticized for using his authority as Commander in Chief to collect future dots that need to be connected.
I note on the sad passing of Coretta Scott King that then-Attorney General Bobby Kennedy wiretapped the phones of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to prove that he was having adulterous affairs and attempt to destroy his character. I don't think there is any comparison President Bush's lawful use of wiretapping to the abuse of wiretapping against Dr. King by a Democrat administration.
Good comments both. I have to defer to Larry Johnson and Tom Maertens, who have personal knowledge of the inner workings of the CIA and NSC, repectively, on these matters.
The evidence is clear, however, that pre-9/11 the Bush administration preferred to turn its attention to Star Wars defense systems and away from terrorist threats. Only after 9/11 did terrorism rise to the top of its agenda, second only (but an excuse for) deposing Saddam Hussein.
We are not against wiretapping per se, but against warrantless wiretapping, which goes against the 4th Amendment and the FISA Act. Whether Robert Kennedy did it or George Bush authorizes it, it's still illegal.
I disagree with you that the warantless wiretapping is against the 4th Amendment or the FISA law. Presidents from Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush have all authorized wiretapping outside of FISA as part of their authority as Commander in Chief. The Supreme Court has never ruled such activity unconstitutional.
FISA is a good law for some applicable surveillance activities. FISA does not apply, however, to spontaneous calls coming in to the U.S. by Al Qaeda operatives overseas. The reason is that in order to trigger FISA, paperwork must be completed by the Justice Department and signed off by the Attorney General. And that is before the call can be monitored and the referral is made to the FISA court. By the time the bureaucratic paper shuffling is complete, the call is long over.
Again, President Bush is not randomly spying on American citizens like past administrations did. I noted earlier that then-Attorney General Bobby Kennedy wiretapped the phones of Martin Luther King, Jr. for the purposes of destroying his character and ending his political effectiveness because King's agenda did not fit that of the Kennedy administration.
From the LA Times:
Defending the surveillance program as crucial in a time of war, Bush said that "previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority" that he did. "And," he added, "federal courts have approved the use of that authority." [...]
However, warrantless surveillance within the United States for national security purposes was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 -- long after Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt stopped issuing orders. That led to the 1978 passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that Bush essentially bypassed in authorizing the program after the Sept. 11 attacks. [...]
Bush's historical reference on domestic spying marked one of several points in his speech in which he backed up assertions with selective uses of fact, or seemed to place a positive spin on his own interpretation. [...]
The Supreme Court decision that you referenced was about the warantless wiretapping of domestic groups (eg. American citizens)trying to subvert the U.S. government. It was not about foreign terrorist groups making phone calls into the United States. There is a big difference between the two.
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