The Ironic Argument in Favor of Domestic Spying

On September 11, 2001 a group of Islamist fanatics armed with box-cutters made fools of the most powerful country in the world and its' multi-billion dollar Defense Department. Due to that chain of events, it became necessary for the United States to disregard its Constitution, cast aside all checks and balances, and subvert our nation's precious liberty in an effort to fight 'terror.' Or so Dave explains to us in his latest column attempting to, yet again, provide the apologists' rationale for Dubya's far-reaching domestic spying policy.

Let's start at the beginning. Dave cites the usual conservative barking point that the New York Times assisted 'blood-stained terrorists' by leaking the President's domestic spying program. These guys were brilliant enough to bring down the World Trade Center with nothing more than box-cutters! You'd have to think that they would be smart enough to know that, beginning on September 12, 2001, it would be fool-hardy to discuss any sort of terrorist plans over the phone. Because of course the United States' top spies would try to intercept them!

But that didn't prevent Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld from instigating the domestic spying program. As they argue, the only way to keep us safe is if they listen to everything we do. As this is little more than an ineffective fishing expedition, little wonder that the FBI has complained that the NSA's program has come up with thousands of worthless leads. Makes me wonder who 'leaked' this story to the Times. Perhaps G-men tired of calling Dominos?

Irony alert. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld worked in the Ford Cabinet, feeling that Nixon- the "law and order" President- had gotten a bum rap. Thirty years later, they're casting "law and order" to the wind in an attempt to prop up Bush's sagging poll numbers.

Dave states that everyone thinks Dubya's domestic wire-tapping is 'swell.' And asks if these people would want to threaten the program's effectiveness by threatening its legality. I have to ask: what is he talking about? Effectiveness? Give us any positive results the NSA program has led to a captured al Qaida cell, or a thwarted al Qaida plot. And I don't want to hear any garbage about an attack in Los Angeles either. I mean- using shoe bombs to blow off a cockpit door and then flying a plane into a building? Please. Besides the fact that one would have to be stupid to believe such a yarn, it's been revealed that this is nothing more than a pipedream of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed with no details offered by the administration.

Irony alert 2. When the Y2K attacks were foiled by the Clinton administration, without relying on domestic spying, there were plenty of details offered. When Bush cites in an October speech that "ten attacks were thwarted" yet has no details to provide- you'd think he'd be crowing about them- excuse me if I retain a healthy dose of skepticsm.

And who's calling this program swell? Here are what fellow Republicans have to say about the program:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-VA): "I don't believe the inherent authority of the president is so strong that there's no role for the Congress or the courts in a time of war when the American citizens are involved."

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), who oversees the NSA: ""The checks and balances in our system of government are very important."

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS): "I am troubled by what the basis for the grounds that the administration says that they did these on, the legal basis..."

Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform: "It's not either/or. If the president thinks he needs different tools, pass a law to get them. Don't break the existing laws."

With friends like these.....?

The issue at stake here is one of ideology. Bush and Cheney feel that the President answers to no one- though only a decade ago they were part of a conservative chorus saying that the President is not above the law. They claim that Democrats live in a pre-9/11 world, but a dismissal of the three-tiered system of checks and balances hearkens back to a pre-1787, pre-Constitution world. It appears this domsetic spying program is an example of trying to do way too much, too late to compensate for the failures on 9/11.

When Alberto Gonzales is unable to give assurances to Arlen Specter that no Americans without any connections to al Qaida hadn't been targeted by the NSA program, a case couldn't be made more clearer that this program requires oversight.

Funnily enough, Dave ends his column by chastising certain leaders in not providing enough oversight in regards to the President's lawlessness (which he qualifies with a "supposed"). That mirrors what Al Gore said in his Martin Luther King Jr. speech last month: "Oversight is almost unknown in the Congress today." Dave Reinhard parroting Al Gore?

The irony knows no end.