My View -- A threat to civil liberties
By Coleen Rowley and Tom Maertens
The Mankato Free Press
Rep. Tim Walz tried to defend his vote in favor of the administration’s wiretapping bill (Rochester Post-Bulletin Aug. 14) instead of just admitting he was wrong.
The bill does not improve judicial oversight but in fact guts it, relegating the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court to ex-post facto reviews only of categories of wiretaps, not individual cases.
The assertion that it restores FISA oversight to what it once was is just plain wrong. And why does he think that having two of George Bush’s equally compliant subordinates sign off on wiretaps is better than involving the judicial branch?
Moreover, FISA oversight of domestic communications was not a “tradition,” as Walz alleges, but a law intended to protect our civil liberties. That this new legislation was a mistake was immediately recognized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said the House would begin work on restoring the protections the bill has eliminated as soon as Congress returns in September.
Walz was certainly right that there is a need for surveillance of potential terrorists, that the United States continues to face serious threats, and that it should not be necessary to have to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to intercept communications between two foreign parties simply because they pass through the United States.
But that wasn’t the real issue. The Democratic majority’s original proposal fixed that problem without expanding warrantless wiretapping to Americans and without giving carte blanche to the Bush administration to vacuum up and sift through millions of our e-mails, telephone calls and other communications.
Sen. Russell Feingold had it right: “The bill the president signed yesterday gives free rein to the government to wiretap all the communications of anyone who happens to be outside the United States, for whatever reason, without court oversight.”
He could have added that the bill, according to the Washington Post, allows warrantless wiretaps of any conversation between a foreigner and an American as long as the conversation could reasonably be interepreted as “concerning” someone outside the country. This is a loophole the administration could drive a truck through.
The new bill even provides the administration a cudgel to force telecom companies to comply with virtually any request the government makes of them.
Rep. Walz promised when he came to Congress, to “face every tough decision by looking at the facts and listening to all sides.” But how did he know the facts when Congress itself has been kept in the dark about the specifics of Bush’s prior illegal monitoring?
Courts at every level have rejected the Bush administration’s assault on the Bill of Rights, including its illegal wiretaps and its imprisonment of American citizens without access to the courts. Yet, Congress passed the shocking Military Commissions Act, which allows the Bush administration to label anyone an enemy combatant and imprison them indefinitely, a Defense bill that permits the government to confiscate the property of anyone believed to be impeding the “War on Terror,” and reversed prohibitions on domestic spying by the CIA and the military.
Its own records show that it has spied on 150 peaceful domestic protest groups, such as the Quakers and Catholic Workers.
Despite this dismal record, Rep. Walz is confident the law he voted for protects citizens’ civil liberties better than the previous system?
Fortunately, he apparently is prepared to use the temporary (six-month) term of the bill to work out something better. But this assumes the Democrats won’t be spooked again by the administration’s inevitable fear-mongering on terrorism as the elections get closer.
It’s not clear that Rep. Walz understands the threat to civil liberties that this administration poses, which surpasses even Richard Nixon’s. The Bill of Rights serves as much more than constitutional niceties or to protect privacy. These laws help maintain our government’s checks and balances among three co-equal branches and “the fourth estate.”
If Walz and the Democrats do not take this most recent constitutional incursion more seriously, it’s possible he and his colleagues could become some of its first victims. In their attempt to defend us from foreign terrorists, they are allowing our freedoms to be destroyed and endangering our democracy.
Coleen Rowley of Apple Valley is a retired FBI agent and Minneapolis legal counsel. Tom Maertens of Mankato served as National Security Council director for nonproliferation and homeland defense under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and as deputy coordinator for counterterrorism in the State Department during and after 9/11. This piece first appeared in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.
Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.
Also published in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.
The Mankato Free Press
Rep. Tim Walz tried to defend his vote in favor of the administration’s wiretapping bill (Rochester Post-Bulletin Aug. 14) instead of just admitting he was wrong.
The bill does not improve judicial oversight but in fact guts it, relegating the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court to ex-post facto reviews only of categories of wiretaps, not individual cases.
The assertion that it restores FISA oversight to what it once was is just plain wrong. And why does he think that having two of George Bush’s equally compliant subordinates sign off on wiretaps is better than involving the judicial branch?
Moreover, FISA oversight of domestic communications was not a “tradition,” as Walz alleges, but a law intended to protect our civil liberties. That this new legislation was a mistake was immediately recognized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said the House would begin work on restoring the protections the bill has eliminated as soon as Congress returns in September.
Walz was certainly right that there is a need for surveillance of potential terrorists, that the United States continues to face serious threats, and that it should not be necessary to have to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to intercept communications between two foreign parties simply because they pass through the United States.
But that wasn’t the real issue. The Democratic majority’s original proposal fixed that problem without expanding warrantless wiretapping to Americans and without giving carte blanche to the Bush administration to vacuum up and sift through millions of our e-mails, telephone calls and other communications.
Sen. Russell Feingold had it right: “The bill the president signed yesterday gives free rein to the government to wiretap all the communications of anyone who happens to be outside the United States, for whatever reason, without court oversight.”
He could have added that the bill, according to the Washington Post, allows warrantless wiretaps of any conversation between a foreigner and an American as long as the conversation could reasonably be interepreted as “concerning” someone outside the country. This is a loophole the administration could drive a truck through.
The new bill even provides the administration a cudgel to force telecom companies to comply with virtually any request the government makes of them.
Rep. Walz promised when he came to Congress, to “face every tough decision by looking at the facts and listening to all sides.” But how did he know the facts when Congress itself has been kept in the dark about the specifics of Bush’s prior illegal monitoring?
Courts at every level have rejected the Bush administration’s assault on the Bill of Rights, including its illegal wiretaps and its imprisonment of American citizens without access to the courts. Yet, Congress passed the shocking Military Commissions Act, which allows the Bush administration to label anyone an enemy combatant and imprison them indefinitely, a Defense bill that permits the government to confiscate the property of anyone believed to be impeding the “War on Terror,” and reversed prohibitions on domestic spying by the CIA and the military.
Its own records show that it has spied on 150 peaceful domestic protest groups, such as the Quakers and Catholic Workers.
Despite this dismal record, Rep. Walz is confident the law he voted for protects citizens’ civil liberties better than the previous system?
Fortunately, he apparently is prepared to use the temporary (six-month) term of the bill to work out something better. But this assumes the Democrats won’t be spooked again by the administration’s inevitable fear-mongering on terrorism as the elections get closer.
It’s not clear that Rep. Walz understands the threat to civil liberties that this administration poses, which surpasses even Richard Nixon’s. The Bill of Rights serves as much more than constitutional niceties or to protect privacy. These laws help maintain our government’s checks and balances among three co-equal branches and “the fourth estate.”
If Walz and the Democrats do not take this most recent constitutional incursion more seriously, it’s possible he and his colleagues could become some of its first victims. In their attempt to defend us from foreign terrorists, they are allowing our freedoms to be destroyed and endangering our democracy.
Coleen Rowley of Apple Valley is a retired FBI agent and Minneapolis legal counsel. Tom Maertens of Mankato served as National Security Council director for nonproliferation and homeland defense under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and as deputy coordinator for counterterrorism in the State Department during and after 9/11. This piece first appeared in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.
Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.
Also published in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.
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