Thursday, February 16, 2006
Internecine warfare
3 Comments:
By 
Cassandra, at
Thu Feb 16, 10:26:00 PM:
Oh thank God.
I skimmed Will's piece this morning at zero dark thirty and my head just about exploded.
Later on, my Dad brought it up (knowing how I love and admire Herr Will) and I ended up in this protracted discussion about exactly what I thought was wrong with Will's argument (which is difficult when you don't have the column in front of you). So I'll be interested to read this and see if he makes the same arguments.
By honestpartisan, at
Fri Feb 17, 12:59:00 AM:
As a general matter, I'm not bothered by the concept of the NSA surveillance program. I find it to be a no-brainer that we should be listening in on conversations Al Qaeda members have with anyone, whether the call involves U.S. soil or not.
But McCarthy doesn't address the most serious objection to the suveillance program: what if they use the program to listen in on calls with Americans who have nothing to do with Al Qaeda? Let's say, to listen on the calls of political enemies? These aren't hypothetical questions; J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon, and to be fair I think LBJ engaged in this type of thing, and that's why Congress passed FISA in the first place, to check this from happening.
If you think that amending FISA would have exposed too much about the data mining operation that it's worth the risk that the executive branch would abuse this program, then at least address the issue and make the hard-hearted case that this is trade-off of the war on terror. In other words, treat me like an adult. But McCarthy's rather patronizing invocation of people who want to kill us pretends that the above objection doesn't exist. (To be fair, I don't think Will raised that in his column.)
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Feb 17, 01:43:00 AM:
US intelligence agencies are not allowed to purposefully collect nor keep information on US persons for more than 90 days without judicial sanction. Ever. This is set in stone, primarily because of the Nixon presidency I think.
The FBI used to get away with it because they are primarily law enforcement. All they needed was a friendly judge and a potential federal crime. (and Hoover blackmailed everyone who thought to change it)
