In Which I Lose My Temper
Look, kudos on Glenn Greenwald for getting new information. Good on you, Business Insider, for reporting on the NSA facility in Utah. CREDO has a petition up, notable.
Here’s the thing, Social Media Outrage Machine…
The Patriot Act was passed quite some time ago. The NSA warrantless wiretapping program led to William Binney and Mark Klein outing them.
In 2002.
CALEA passed in 1994. Carnivore went live in 1997.
The guys and gals in charge of the machinery that supports law enforcement are always going to seek more, new, and better tools. They want them both to help them catch bad guys, and to help prevent bad guys from doing bad things. Their motivations are bipartisan and (I honestly believe) largely good-intentioned. This stuff has been going on in one form or another, regardless of party, since before the Cold War.
This isn’t about Obama, and it wasn’t really about Bush, before him, or Clinton, before that, or Nixon and his enemies list, either. You give the Executive branch power and discretion… and they’re going to use that power without being able to explain their discretion to you… which makes it appear indiscriminate (regardless of how indiscriminate it is).
From the Telegraph, Mr. Obama:
“In the abstract you can complain about Big Brother or how this is a potential programme run amok, but when you actually look at the details I think we’ve struck the right balance,” he said, insisting they were vital in the fight against terrorism.
Of course, the difficulty is that we don’t get to see the details. Who gets to see the details?
Congress.
From that same story:
The mass collection of phone records was criticised by Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman who helped write the Patriot Act (emphasis mine), the sweeping anti-terror legislation passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
“As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the FBI’s interpretation of this legislation, he said. “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”
As the author of the Patriot Act, Mr. Sensenbrenner, you have nobody to blame but your own self. Also Mike Rogers, and everyone else on the relevant Intelligence Committee.
… the National Security Agency (NSA) programme had disrupted a terrorist attack on the US “in the last few years”. Mr Rogers said he was unable to give more details because the information was classified.
More from that last link:
In his statement, Mr Clapper said members of Congress had been “fully and repeatedly briefed” (emphasis mine again) on the phone records programme and that all three branches of the US government had authorised it.
He added that while the US collects vast amounts of data it must seek a court order before order before it delves into any specific records.
“The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organisation,” he said. He gave no detail on how often the court authorised specific records to be probed.
Mr Clapper said that the programme was reviewed by the secret court every three months but it appears to have been continually approved for the last seven years.
Look, people, you don’t want this stuff going on any more?
Look up your Congressional representatives’ voting records and act accordingly.
Your Facebook memes are useless.
They’re also all focusing on the President, when it is Congress that is the problem.
Don’t listen to their speechifying. Their speechifying will tell you nothing except that they’re outraged… outraged!… that there is gambling going on in this establishment.
If you think whoever is going to take over the reins of the Presidency in 2016 is going to stop doing this, I expect you will be surprised in 2018 when the next, next, next whistleblower leak is announced.
Make Congress do its job.
Extra-special note to the Tea Party, your caucus voted 40-8 in favor of HR 3523 – Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. The Democrats were 42-140 against. The Democrats made up 140 of the 168 “Nay” votes on HR 3523. When their own party holds the White House.
- Michelle Bachmann: Yea
- Rodney Alexander: Yea
- Gus Bilirakus: Yea
- Diane Black: Yea
- Mike Burgess: Yea
- Paul Broun: Yea
- John Carter: Yea
- Bill Cassidy: Yea
- John Coble: Yea
- Mike Coffman: Yea
- Ander Crenshaw: Yea
- John Culberson: Yea
- John Duncan: Yea
- Stephen Fincher: Yea
- Trent Franks: Yea
- Phil Gingrey: Yea
- Vicky Hartzler: Yea
- Tim Huelskamp: Yea
- Lynn Jenkins: Yea
- Steve King: Yea
- Doug Lamborn: Yea
- Blaine Luetkemeyer: Yea
- David McKinley: Yea
- Gary Miller: Yea
- Mick Mulvaney: Yea
- Randy Neugebauer: Yea
- Rich Nugent: Yea
- Steve Palazzo: Yea
- Ted Poe: Yea
- Tom Price: Yea
- Phil Roe: Yea
- Dennis Ross: Yea
- Ed Royce: Yea
- Steve Scalise: Yea
- Pete Sessions: Yea
- Adrian Smith: Yea
- Lamar Smith: Yea
- Tim Walberg: Yea
- Lynn Westmoreland: Yea
- Joe Wilson: Yea
Against?
- Joe Barton: Nay
- Rob Bishop: Nay
- Blake Farenthold: Nay
- John Fleming: Nay
- Louie Gohmert: Nay
- Kenny Marchant: Nay
- Tom McClintock: Nay
- Steve Pearce: Nay
“Your Facebook memes are useless.”
Love that, man…..I’ma put it on Facebook.Report
I am going to go into business with carrier pigeons. “Messages that the government don’t see” will be my slogan.
Government can’t intercept my pigeons.
Well, unless they fed the pigeons and just took the messages off their necks.
But they wouldn’t do that, would they? That would be monstrous.Report
This was originally something about Facebook, but then I took that out.Report
Not that some people haven’t tried.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSnzOOtHfDoReport
In 2002.
To make a hasty analogy: We may have been drinking in 2002. If we’re finally sober enough to look at what we did in the harsh light of morning and we’re saying “WHAT IN THE HELL DID WE DO???”, that’s a good thing.Report
That would be a good thing.
What I’m hearing instead is, “The guy currently in charge is a freaking drunk! It’s all his fault!”
From many of the same guys who have voted, not just in 2002, but multiple times since then, to keep giving him giant buckets of booze.Report
The Congress has changed hands a couple of times since then… sadly, I’m googling for the number of Congresspeople who have more than five terms under their belt, and I’m not finding that number. In 2000, there were 359 “safe” seats according to Congressional Quarterly but there have been a number of things that have happened since then… of course, there are probably still 359 safe seats, now that I think about it… just with different asses in them.
It’s a pity that it took us this long to start saying “wait, what?” rather than “another round!”
But we should be cultivating the “wait, what?” response rather than criticizing how long it took to arrive.
Unless, of course, it’s nothing more than a useful partisan argument to be abandoned soon… in which case, we need to cultivate it as quickly as we can! Get people on the record! If we can’t get them to pass a law, we can at least get them to make quotations that will be embarassing 4 years from now.Report
I’d love this if i thought it woudl help. which it won’t.Report
Applauding. Loudly.Report
Well, Obama is trying to cover himself by saying that the appropriate Congressional committees are briefed. They are briefed, but they’re not allowed to say anything. Diane Feinstein and other liberal Democrats were fully briefed about all the waterboarding going on under Bush and couldn’t utter a peep about it because it was classified. They can’t even tell other Congressmen, so far as I am aware.
In theory they have oversight, but it seems that if they actually used their oversight to any degree that rose to causing annoyance, they’d lose their clearance or get booted off the committee. At least that was the story when Democrats were explaining why they didn’t say anything about enhanced interrogations.
As I’ve said elsewhere, on this issue they’re more than a bit in the position of going after J Edgar Hoover knowing he’s got dirt on everybody in his files.Report
In theory they have oversight, but it seems that if they actually used their oversight to any degree that rose to causing annoyance, they’d lose their clearance or get booted off the committee. At least that was the story when Democrats were explaining why they didn’t say anything about enhanced interrogations.
Yeah, I buy that not at all. Mostly because the good Senator Feinstein and many of her compatriots weren’t “explaining” why they didn’t say anything. Dianne Feinstein has long been of the, “We’ve got this, it’s all right, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” vein, even giving her own party members short shrift in the attitude department.
Also: you know how you solve this problem, if you don’t have the gumption to provide the oversight necessary? You deauthorize the program, instead of voting, yet again, to extend the Patriot Act and its satellite programs, like the NSA wiretap program, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, etc.Report
So what happens, George, if Obama doesn’t follow the laws? That is his job, to implement the laws passed by Congress. What happens if he shuts the whole thing down without Congressional approval?
Impeachment?Report
I’d guess, “hemming and hawing from Congress about how he’s not keeping us safe (so that they can cash in if there’s another terrorist attack between now and 2016), and the next guy just turns the machinery back on in 2016.”
You want this stuff to stop, the branches need to do their job. Checks and balances, right?Report
Yup.
But one branch can’t be bothered to do anything that remotely looks like governing because it might make another look good. A second branch, that would deal with these issue from a constitutional perspective is understaffed because another branch is slow to appoint and the first branch won’t approve.
It is a cluster-fuck.Report
Exactly right.Report
The system must be shut down, and we have to make them shut it down. As I’ve argued here and elsewhere, a free democracy probably cannot coexist for long with a stack of personal files listing everyone’s dirt. It makes it too easy to compromise everyone. The ability to track terrorist activities is nice, but the administration doesn’t seem to use it for its intended purpose because they won’t acknowledge that radical jihadists are a problem. If they’re not going to use it to go after terrorists, and given that terrorists seem to be about as big a threat as bears with rabies, what’s the point of risking the pact between the people and their government, given that all the archived dirt can be used to compromise anyone you elect?Report
The ability to track terrorist activities is nice, but the administration doesn’t seem to use it for its intended purpose because they won’t acknowledge that radical jihadists are a problem.
Do we really have such a problem? Our schools, churches, power grid, water supplies, shopping malls, halls of government, highways all sitting out there, mostly unprotected.
Since 9/11, we’ve had a few crazies; but some of them were not radical jihadists, they were just crazy.Report
because they won’t acknowledge that radical jihadists are a problem.
Are they a problem? In what sense? It seems to me that the radical jihadi are pissed-off because US fingers keep poking around in Muslim nations. So in that sense the “problem” is easily resolved, no?Report
I don’t know why some people are still fixated over Libya.Report
No, the problem is not easily resolved, unless you think every European country is poking around in their business, along with Hindus, Sikhs, animists, and every other religion on Earth. About 95% of all terrorist attacks around the world are carried out by Muslims, the exceptions being central Africa and a couple of other obscure places.Report
About 95% of all terrorist attacks around the world are carried out by Muslims, the exceptions being central Africa and a couple of other obscure places.
A statistic like this requires citation; because I suspect you pulled it out of your hat.Report
“About 95% of all terrorist attacks around the world are carried out by Muslims, the exceptions being central Africa and a couple of other obscure places.”
Man, the discussion here is going down hill.
Here’s an analogy. 100% of the drone strikes against innocent women and children are conducted by Christian nations. That doesn’t justify some psycho in singling out some Christians for reprisal. The fact that some Christians inflicted violence (nobody is more violent than the Christians, all told) does not implicate all Christians or Christians in general, nor does it justify any particular treatment of Christians in general, nor does it show that Christianity is the cause of violence.
Just stop George.Report
Not a single terrorist attack has been committed on horseback in the United States for over 100 years.
Clearly, the automobile is to blame for the current state of affairs.Report
No, I didn’t pull it out of my hat. Can you name another group that uses suicide belts and car bombs? When they’re not attacking Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, animists, or atheists, or Russians, they’re attacking other Muslims with similar methods. 1400+ killed in Muslim attacks in May, with 2600 injured. Most of the victims are Muslim. Maybe they’ll quit at some point, but it’s been going on since the Sunni/Shia split in one form or another.Report
Are you even wearing a hat?Report
I was. It’s on the floor right now.Report
You guys really buy into the idea that modern terrorism and Islam are unrelated? O_oReport
YOU RACIST. YOU ARE A RACIST.Report
You know what would make this comment have more teeth? If anyone were calling anyone else a racist. Anywhere. At all. On the entire post comments.
Yeah, then it would be AWESOME!!!! And really clever.
As it is…..Report
Even given what you said, it’s still a pretty awesome comment.Report
“Shut up!” he explained. ^_^
Maybe I spend too much time in the Counter Terrorist databases, but there are virtually no remaining international terrorists who aren’t jihadists. In fact, there are few other kinds of terrorist groups still active other than a handful of leftover left wing revolutionaries and anarchists. Aun Shrikyo is down to about a thousand members in their entire cult. The Irish, Basques, and Tamils gave it up, and the Sikhs have been pretty quiet. That leaves the field to about a hundred Islamic militant groups. Starting with the A’s:
Abdullah Azzam Brigades
Abu Nidal
Abu Sayyaf
al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades
al Badr
al Gama’a al Islamiyya
al Ghurrabaa
al Itihaad al Islamiya
al Nusra (an al Qaeda affiliate)
al Qaeda
al Qaeda in Iraq
al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
al Shabaab
Ansar al Islam
Ansar al Sunna
Ansar Dine
Ansaru (Nigerian Islamic jihadists)
Armed Islamic Group of Algeria
Army of Islam
Asbat al Ansar
Notice a pattern? The rest of the alphabet is largely similar except for M’s, which combine “Muslim”, “Marxist”, and “Maoist” and R’s, which include lots of “Revolutionary” communist groups, and T which includes some Tamils (who’ve stopped).
You might think you see some Christian terrorist groups in the databases(aside from the Irish Protestant/Catholic groups which are no longer active), such as the Holy Land Foundation (out of Texas), the Vanguard of Conquest, the Saved Sect (out of Britain), but they are all jihadist too. Since the Irish quit fighting, there aren’t any Christian terrorist groups left, at least not on any lists, and the only other groups that might include Christians are communists or anarchists.
NCTC terrorist group list
State Department terrorist list covering both groups and individuals.
In the State Department list you have the same mix of communist revolutionaries and jihadists, with a few oddballs like the Basque ETA who gave up fighting. About the only European names other than Hispanic FARC/Shining Path related ones on the list are Eric Breininger, who was a German killed in Pakistan while on jihad, Michel Samaha, aka Saadah Al Naib Mishal Fuad Samahah (a Lebanese intelligence official supporting Assad in Syria), and Doku Umarov, who is a Chechen jihadist, considered to be their Osama bin Laden, and who inspired Tamerlan Tsarnaev (aka Speed Bump).
Without all these jihadist groups there wouldn’t be any reason for the NSA to have a program like PRISM, since lone wolves are just about the last people who show up in the data, since they don’t network, and the ones like FARC stay home.
One question is that if Obama was truthful when he said Al Qaeda no longer represents a threat to us, then why does he keep expanding the eavesdropping programs? If the threat is gone and Al Qaeda is on the ropes then we don’t need to employ much more monitoring than we had prior to the Patriot Act. Though it seems his words are just words and usually divorced from his actions.Report
there are virtually no remaining international terrorists who aren’t jihadists
Over here, we call them “spree killers”, unless they’re Muslim.Report
“So what happens, George, if Obama doesn’t follow the laws? That is his job, to implement the laws passed by Congress. What happens if he shuts the whole thing down without Congressional approval? ”
Given that it’s black budget, and classified up the wazoo, I’ll bet that Congress would never go there on impeachment. Like in 1998, when they impeached Clinton – did you notice that the Kosovo War was not one of the articles? Even though the President engaged in a war, not justified by declaration or treaty, and not in immediate self-defense.Report
Agreeing with George here (in a very rare occasion).
And SCOTUS has been quite happy to use classification to allow things to proceed.Report
Oversight rather implies that they would stop it if it was going over the line, except I don’t trust that the majority of Congress has any clue where “the line” is (which goes back to Patrick’s point about use electing crappy politicians & not holding them accountable).
Unfortunately, oversight today means they were informed, are forbidden from saying anything about it, & will eagerly stump against it should it ever see the light of day.Report
Yea, people are irrational, but good thing some are trying to pay more attention now!Report
I don’t think so.
I’ve seen a number of things with the SCOTUS that defy prevalent conception– Justice O’Connor was very pro-Eleventh Amendment, voting repeatedly that state officials are unaccountable to federal law; Justice Thomas writing an opinion exponentially enlarging waiver of federal sovereign immunity– and none of it was hidden.
Yet people tend to operate on preconceptions rather than to assess new facts. Established opinions are hard to shake.Report
If Obama taking a political hit is the price for getting rid of the AUMF and/or PATRIOT, is that a price worth paying?
I mean, *I* would find it a price worth paying. But I would.Report
But Obama taking a political hit on this might be an eventuality that lessens the likelihood of that, not one that is a price of it happening.Report
…Or his taking a hit of a particular size versus a somewhat smaller one that is substantially shared.Report
The next time I read “Bush did it too!” where the implication is “and therefore should be brought before the same tribunal!” rather than “and therefore you’re a hypocrite/and therefore Obama’s not doing anything wrong!”, will be the first time.Report
…Um, with Congress, Jaybird? With Congress. I.e., the basic point of this post.
Or if you’re not saying you think I’m saying that we should make sure Bush shares the hit with Obama, then I don’t know what relevant comment you think you’re making.Report
To be honest, I don’t see how Congress might take a hit.
They pass a law, maybe (unlikely, of course, but possible) that forbids a non-zero number of excesses. (Hell, maybe one that *REPEALS* a former law!)
How do they share the hit with Obama? It’s easy to see how Bush might be called to account… one of the names named. Congress? How Congress? Their approval rating is already 15%. It might go back down to 10% (or break that record, even) but… the dynamic is different for them.Report
Can we first just clarify what you thought your previous comment related to?Report
Sigh. You gave two interpretations. In one of the interpretations, what I said made sense. In the other interpretation, you had no idea what I was saying.
You don’t know whether to go with the interpretation where what I said made sense or the interpretation where you have no idea what I mean.
Would it provide sufficent clarity for me to say that the interpretation where you understand what I was saying is the correct one?Report
Huh? I honestly don’t follow.
I don’t know what interpretations you are referring to. I clarified what I meant in the first comment with the second, and you responded to the second. Pretty common thing. Was it not clear that I was amending what I had just said in the comment you responded to?
But I don’t even follow the relevance of what you said to the first thing I said, even imagining that I didn’t amend it before you said anything.Report
Or if you’re not saying you think I’m saying that we should make sure Bush shares the hit with Obama, then I don’t know what relevant comment you think you’re making.
Do you remember writing that? If you don’t, that’s cool. It clarifies things.Report
Obviously I remember writing that. And obviously I thought you were referring to interpretations (of something?) that came before what you wrote that would have made what you said make sense.
So you’re saying that the two interpretations I offered were:
(1) if you’re not saying you think I’m saying that we should make sure Bush shares the hit with Obama (then I don’t know what relevant comment you think you’re making)
and (2) if you are saying you think I’m saying that we should make sure Bush shares the hit with Obama (then maybe I do, kind of?)
And you’re saying I should take the one that does make sense (even though it runs counter to the whole point of this post, which is that Congress should share the blame with Obama).
Which would be that you were saying you thought I was saying that we should make sure Bush shares the hit with Obama (even though it runs counter to the whole point of this post, which is that Congress should share the blame with Obama).
Is that right?Report
I see where the problem is. I had some unstated premises and jumped ahead anyway. Here they are:
To resolve the problem that “the people” have with the law will probably require a law on the part of Congress. I don’t see how a theoretical law passes the House without the House doing it in such a way that takes a swipe at Obama (thus: the political hit). If Congress does write a law to address the previous laws, I don’t see how in the hell they share the hit with Obama. They are, after all, the ones who wrote the law to address the problem.
The only person who might share the hit is Bush. Congress, however, won’t.Report
Michael, Jaybird speaks in aphorisms most of the time. Which is a tried and true method of reaching people! But don’t feel bad if he corrects on the correct interpretation.Report
I think we’re thinking about “the hit” differently, though it was your concept, so fair enough. I didn’t realize your view was so specific to the current political dynamics in the various chambers and the WH, etc.
In my view, if (big if!) Congress is moved to change the law, it will be because they’ve taken some degree of a hit and are reacting. Yes, they’ll swipe at Obama, but they’ll be in the midst of dealing with a hit themselves. But another, entirely plausible and more likely scenario still finds Congress swiping at Obama, up to and including falsely claiming he overstepped the letter of the law – but being able to just leave it at that, because they face no heat (hit) over the fact that their law empowers him to do much of this legally (and thereby to some extent compels him politically to do much of it, as I think there’s still an expectation that the president take all legal steps that he can to prevent terrorist attacks). That’s Sensenbrenner’s current aim.
In my view, the difference between those scenarios has a lot to do with whether Congress takes a hit in the short term for the state of the law being what it is (even if, in the longer run, they are able to displace much of that hit by saying it’s Obama’s overreach that compelled them to fix the law, and by then being in the position of the ones doing something about that). If Congress is compelled to act, it’s because they’re taking a hit – even if they’re then able to redirect it. And yes, I agree that’s unlikely, but I don’t see what mechanism you foresee where Congress never comes under pressure (a hit) to act and the president takes the full initial hit that leads to the changes in law you want to see. So we should still want Congress to take the hit that might (but not likely) spur them to act, thereby passing that hit on (hell, if they did act, they might well ten deserve to pass it on!), however forlorn that desire might be.Report
“You don’t know whether to go with the interpretation where what I said made sense or the interpretation where you have no idea what I mean.”
I’d go for the latter out of experience.
🙂Report
…Members of Congress would take a hit by being thought to be largely responsible for what the law says, or in any case for having to respond to what people want it to be. So if, as advocated in Sensenbrenner’s letter, the public comes to think that the problem with these actions is overwhelmingly Obama transgressing whatever limits might be found on the power given to the office he holds by the Patriot Act and other legislation, then he will have taken a substantial part of the overall political hit (or borne a substantial part of the blame) that, if directed in part to Congress (which rightly bears a significant part of the blame), would (or might) tend more towards accomplishing those ends than if much of that share of the blame was borne by Obama.
We shouldn’t care whether “Congress” per se takes the hit… i.e. what its approval rating is. We should, or perhaps should, care whether they take a hit in the public understanding of why these things are happening.
It’s possible that changes in the law may come about more quickly if all the blame in borne in one place, in particular the president – that is true. I didn’t say you’re absolutely wrong that Obama taking a hit might be a price for there being legislative change (and in any case, Obama is taking a hit for this, and these things coming out certainly tend to advance that cause, so in that sense, it’s certainly is a price to pay, if we want to call it a price), I just said (on clarification) it might not be that the larger hit he personally takes, the closer we get to change of the laws you mention. I don’t think we know.
And maybe you weren’t suggesting that; you’re right that he’ll take a hit, and if this were all to lead to changes to these laws, then that hit would indeed be a “price” that was paid for it. But I don’t think Patrick’s post in any way suggested it’s wrong that Obama would take a hit over all this, it says that Congress ought to too, as I understand it in the way I describe.Report
Members of Congress would take a hit by being thought to be largely responsible for what the law says, or in any case for having to respond to what people want it to be.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a backlash against a law that is older than a Congressional Term. I can maybe think of a handful of backlashes resulting in the House turning over (look at the last couple of decades), I don’t know that I can think of a single instance of a backlash against Congress for something they did a decade prior.Report
Well, I was just saying that it might be that f such a thing were to happen it might lead to what you want more readily than if there was only a backlash against the Executive.
So what is your view exactly, then? That the issue of Congress receiving some of the blame for this is irrelevant because people just don’t get mad at Congress for what the law has been for more than six years or so? Do you think that any outrage directed at Congress is actually wasted, because it lessens the amount directed at the president, which in some way or other does tend to move Congress toward changing the law (the outcome you’re interested in)?
I’m sincerely curious about your mental model for this.Report
I don’t see how The House in repealling a law pretty much agreed upon as being a bad law will take part of the hit for having passed it in the first place.
Compare, perhaps, to Prohibition. The blame didn’t fall on the people who repealed the Amendment (even if they helped pass it a decade prior). The blame, what blame there was, fell on those who enforced it.
In this case, I suspect a similar dynamic, only without the Repeal Day parties. When the law is repealed, there will be *SOME* good vibes to come out for Obama signing the law that could probably be spun as him working with Congress to fix Bush’s excesses.
But, for now, if there is a political hit to be taken, it won’t be taken by those who will be crafting the law to repeal. It will hit those who execute the law as it stands.Report
Now that I think about it, there’s another outcome that I don’t know whether it’s likely or not:
The Supreme Court can look at the law now, for reals, given that someone who, seriously, has standing to bring the law will do so.
They look at the law.
They say “It doesn’t violate the 4th” in some bass-ackward 5-4 vote with strange bedfellows all over the place (Scalia and Ginsburg dissenting together, Sotomayor and Alito agreeing).
And it becomes, magically, not obviously unconstitutional anymore. And, eventually, obviously constitutional.
Edit: (And there’s always the option of an 8-1 UNCONSTITUTIONAL DAMMIT! decision that solves the problem for everybody. As such, this strikes me as the most unlikely.)Report
I mean, I think the blame for prohibition largely fell on the people who put it in place – the movement that pushed for it, and then their representatives. Those people I think took the hit. People hated law enforcement for enforcing it, but I don’t think they blamed law enforcement for its existence. But, sure law enforcement took a hit – there was plenty of hit to go around.
As there is here. The president will take a hit for this. As I think Congress can. Sure, by the time they get around to repeal, the hit will have been absorbed, and perhaps will be in the process of being redirected. But you’re ignoring what may or may not lead to that. I’m saying that if they’re eventually moved to do that, it will be because they will have taken a hit. Either because a lot of Reps will have had to execute embarrassing public reversals, or because they’ll have been replaced due to discontent with the laws they support keeping in place – or both. By the time they’re actually repealing it, that will all have become prelude, whereas now it’s still not even on the horizon (hardly, or so it seems). Somehow they have to get to that point – you’re just dealing with whether actually doing it or not will involve a hit, but it seems to me like getting there will, one way or another.Report
The FISA Court ruled that the spying was both unconstitutional and in violation of the surveillance laws, but the Department of Justice refuses to release the court’s 86 page opinion.
Mother Jones link
There’s little reason Congress would take a political hit if the administration was violating the existing laws, the court was so ruling, and the DoJ was covering it up.
And of course most of Congress seems to be in a foul mood over Obama’s very public claim that they’d all been briefed when they hadn’t. That directly and falsely implicated all of them in the ongoing collapse of trust between their constituents and the US government, and I doubt they’ll sit still for it.Report
George, this whole thing was set off by the leak of an active FISA order authorizing the phone records dragnet. So it can’t be that spying that FISA disallowed, not without modifications that satisfied it. It could be PRISM (though then we’d have to assume NSA is flatly disobeying an order of FISA, unless it modified that program to comply with the order in that link).
So either way, your statement that FISA ruled that “the spying was both unconstitutional and in violation of the surveillance laws” is too ambiguous to have meaning. FISA ruled that *some* spying was unconstitutional, but just recently they ruled that *some of this spying we’re talking about now* was allowable. That what spying they ruled unconstitutional is unclear is the entire point of that important David Corn article you link. But that means it’s entirely unclear whether it is “the” spying we are currently talking – and it’s unclear whether the spying that was ruled unconstitutional by FISA is still going on in the form in which it was ruled unconstitutional.
Your point about the level of briefing is very well-taken, though. Obama went way past what he could defensibly claim about what most of Congress knew about the extent of these activities.Report
If Obama taking a political hit is the price for getting rid of the AUMF and/or PATRIOT, is that a price worth paying?
As soon as one of Obama’s critics moves forward with a legislative agenda that can achieve either of these things, then this question becomes realistic. I’m sure myself and plenty of other liberals would take that trade in a heart-beat once it is presented. What’s happening now, however, is that the very people who voted repeatedly to support these authorizations (including the author of the PATRIOT Act) are scrapping and yelling without lifting a finger to undo their own votes. They want the political hit without out any of the painful legislation.
In other words, I’m glad my junkie neighbor has renounced heroin and says he’s hooked on Yoga, but I’m not gonna let him babysit my kids until he, like, stops buying heroin every week. Even if my current babysitter sneaks out for a smoke once in a while.Report
http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/06/rand-paul-to-introduce-fourth-amendment
Here’s an article from Thursday that says that Rand Paul is going to introduce a law “tomorrow”. I’m looking for something (anything!) that says that this actually happened…Report
And one of the links says that he introduced it on May 23rd.
So it’s in the pipeline, theoretically.
I just have no idea what is going on with it now.
Which irritates me. It shouldn’t be this difficult to figure out what’s going on with legislation.Report
Thomas.gov
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d113:11:./temp/~bd9EAT:@@@X|/home/LegislativeData.php?n=BSS;c=113|Report
Botched that up for good. go here then click “all congressional actions”
(it’s only
as of this morning)Report
Cosponsors (None).
That’s irritating.Report
You know what? I’m going to call my Colorado Senators and ask them to cosponsor. If your senator isn’t on the Judiciary Committee, you should call your senator and ask him or her to cosponsor.Report
I just contacted Sen. King. Collins is probably a lost cause, she’s long since sold-out to the military industrial complex.Report
Dude, I have Boxer and Feinstein.Report
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1037
It’s in committee.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/committees/SSJU
If you live in: Vermont, Iowa, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Texas, California, Arizona, South Carolina, Utah, Hawaii, or Alabama, please call your senator’s office and tell him that you’re watching this legislation.
(Of course, a law saying “FOLLOW THE CONSTITUTION” ought to be extraneous but…)Report
Thanks for pointing this out Jaybird, it’s a big step in the right direction and I admire Paul for making it. At the very least, I hope every congressman that goes on the NewsTalk shows to quote Orwell is asked as a follow-up why they’re not cosponsoring S.1037 (has this actually happened?).
As a side-note, I am still a bit cynical on laws that essentially say “FOLLOW THE CONSTITUTION”, especially given Paul’s similar legislation on drone strikes which – as written – had zero impact any standing policy. Has anyone actually analyzed the legal ramifications of this bill? Are there any obvious loop-holes (i.e. the NSA just writes “To: All Verizon Customers” on the data request or something)? Because, in contrast to the drones bill, a complete ban on big-data acquisition like this would have massive ramifications on how law enforcement currently works.Report
This post forcefully expresses what has been on my mind since this latest version of this scandal broke.
I think I owe you a drink for that post on work a while back, this one makes two.Report
I blame Americans.Report
I knew it!
But that Keri Russell, she’s such a cutie pie, I just can’t stay mad at her.Report
This isn’t about Obama, and it wasn’t really about Bush, before him, or Clinton, before that, or Nixon and his enemies list, either.
Exactly.
Your Facebook memes are useless.
Not exactly. Facebook is the same as donut-shop chatter. It starts as a useless meme and the next thing you know a mob is taking over the Czar’s Palace.Report
The Czar’s Palace? Or Zucotti Park?
Yeah, sorry, but I put no faith in the mob until they put down the Guy Fawkes masks and pick up pitchforks. (Not endorsing mob violence by any means, just questioning the Facebook generation’s commitment to doing actual things. Raid the Czar’s Palace…and miss next week’s episode of Game of Thrones? Not I, said the Facebook poseur.)Report
Well, I agree on the one hand, but I don’t on the other. Just referencing OWS in this context suggests to me that the movement (drumcircle, whatever…) contained seeds which could have grown into something substantial. It also implies that there was real movement in the way people think about things, for better or worse depending on pov of course.Report
Great post Patrick,
I have a weird question that I am unsure how to answer.
Which is that is more bothersome about these programs?
1. The violation of privacy
2. The fact that there is no democratic transparency about these programs?
(Okay, you could answer they are equally worrisome.)
Personally, I don’t care about the privacy violation. There are some slippery slope concerns (“What if Hillary uses the secret information to kibosh her political opponents?”). But I rarely think slopes are slippery, and if we start slipping, we’ll grab a rail (making metaphor awkward).
But I really do think government transparency is a big deal, intrinsically. We can’t make a decision as a society about whether to vote to continue the program if we don’t know what the program is. Personally, that is worth risking lives, but I can see the “tradeoffs” Obama is talking about.Report
Which is that is more bothersome about these programs?
Violations of privacy, I’d say. No question. Violations of privacy require meeting a heavy burden of justification which governmental secrecy violates. Alternatively, open government may be necessary condition on a fair and just government, but that bears no logical connection to transparency in citizen activity.Report
To my mind, gov’t transparency, in tandem with a robust Fourth Estate, is the necessary bedrock toward protecting — or indeed, knowledgeably sacrificing — any constitutionally protected privacies. (Or at least what we perceive to be protected privacies. Myself, I’m not entirely sure what privacy rights we actually have anymore: there seems a sizable gulf between what technology can do and what law and regulation purportedly allows.)Report
That’s a good point. Back in the Great Old Days, a transaction between two people involving cash and merchandize was considered private. So were the financial documents recording that exchange. Now, the exact same transaction when conducted via the internet isn’t. “The internet is an Open Forum!” is the argument, I guess.
I don’t understand the logic.Report
“Back in the Great Old Days, a transaction between two people involving cash and merchandize was considered private.”
You mean the Grand Old Days before sales and income taxes?Report
Yeah. And slavery!Report
If it weren’t for the 16th Amendment, we’d never have passed the 13th.Report
On of my friends who used to work in the complex at Ft. Meade (and who almost resigned his security clearance over an episode) sent me this link to the 1975 hearings on NSA activities. The exchange is between Senator Mondale and the NSA director, General Allen, concerning the abuse of interceptions of communications between American citizens.
That starts down at page 36. I’d recommend starting at least at page 35 and go from there.Report
Where do we draw the line between security and privacy? Can you have both?Report
Home run, Pat – if not a grand slam.
I had been thinking about saying something similar when I got back home, but it wouldn’t have laid it out as neatly, concisely or on target at you’ve done here.Report
It’s about time someone cogently hung this particular albatross around Congress’ neck, where it belongs. Well done, Patrick.Report
You give the Executive branch power and discretion… and they’re going to use that power without being able to explain their discretion to you
So very well said.Report
They’re also all focusing on the President, when it is Congress that is the problem.
Getting warmer, but not quite there yet. The problem is the voters who keep sending them back. A democracy gets the government it deserves.Report
No it’s NOT new news. But the good thing about this disclosure is that it will be in the news and people like you will remind folks that is isn’t news and maybe they will remember. That this is still going on and that they didn’t do anything to stop it last time. Maybe it will spark a tad bit more outrage and motiviate folks to correct it.
Doubtful, but still.Report