The Constitution: Great While It Lasted

In politics, when you catch a whiff of brimstone, you might be well-advised to look for the devil. Thus it is with the heretofore (mostly) secret NSA program to keep track of all telephone calls in the United States. The International Herald Tribune sets the table as follows:

"WASHINGTON In the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e- mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials. . .

As in other areas of intelligence collection, including interrogation methods for suspected terrorists, Cheney and Addington [Cheney's legal adviser] took an aggressive view of what was permissible under the Constitution, said the two senior intelligence officials."

Credit is due to the Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF"), which has been reporting on this subject for quite some time, now; but since they're a civil liberties watchdog organization, it goes without saying that nobody heeded their warnings. Still, in light of recent developments, the EFF's full allegations might bear repeating. The EFF's claim is that:

In the largest "fishing expedition" ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to "data-mine" the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be "linked" to "suspicious activities," suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.[emphasis added]

These allegations are the subject of a pending lawsuit, which lawsuit is in turn the subject of a pending motion to dismiss which has been filed by the Attorney General's office. The AG's main argument, in essence, is that the case must be dismissed because all evidence connected with the alleged program falls under the "national security privilege," and that therefore even allowing the lawsuit itself to proceed would be a dangerous breach of national security.

A Washington Post/ABC poll published on Friday, May 12, 2006 found that 63 per cent of Americans thought the NSA programm was an "acceptable" means of gathering data.

I have two problems with the NSA program of collecting records of all telephone calls, and I don't think either one of them has occurred to the majority of Americans who seem to be telling pollsters they have no problem with it.

First, I think there's no logical reason, if the President's argument is accepted, why he *couldn't* randomly tap into domestic telephone conversations (or have computers tap into all of them), if he believed it was in the national interest. I find that troubling.

Second, there's absolutely no guarantee that the information the NSA gathers will be used *only* to hunt down terrorists. Until now, the very secrecy of the program acted as a sort of rough guarantee aganst its abuse. But if it's acknowledged that the program exists, and the public signals that it's O.K. with that, then the government can use the information it gathers for any purpose at all.

I predict it won't be long at all before the database's use is expanded to broader and broader classes of criminal investigations. Eventually, it could end up being used for *all* of them. Or even just to get them started. The Administration could even end up using unrestricted surveillance as a tool for tripping up its political opponents.

And THAT, I have a huge problem problem with. I could almost tolerate this program if I could be absolutely certain that the information gathered would only ever be used to investigate terrorists, and that it would never be expanded to include other types of information. But the Administration is claiming that the President has unlimited authority and can do whatever he likes.

That's an argument we can't afford to let them win.