[Intelforum] Bush's Warrantless Wiretaps

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From: DLVinvest at cs.com
Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 15:02:28 EST
Subject: Re: Bush's Warrantless Wiretaps
To: intelforum at lists101.his.com

In a message dated 12/26/05 8:02:54 AM Mountain Standard Time, 
LevinMJ at aol.com writes:

>A whistleblower is a person who reveals unclassified information 
>concerning official wrongdoing, waste, fraud or abuse.
>
This type of revelation is legal; it is in fact protected by law. Often

>whistleblowers are proud to provide their identification.
>


i.e., not Karl Rove or Scooter Libby -- but Mr. Levin's definition is 
deliberately too narrow: Many cases of "official wrongdooing" involve 
improper use of classification as a legal cover for illegal executive 
activity -- as in the case of by-passing FISA's already lax 
requirements (72 hours, even retroactively) for presentation of a 
basis of "reasonable suspicion" to a secret court , thus forcing the 
"whistleblowers" to expose themselves to the kind of prosecution and 
imprisonment that Mr. Levin recommends, hence:

>In the case at point, an individual with access to classified 
>national security information leaked information to the press. This 
>action was a criminal violation of the law. Anyone who further 
>disclosed this information publicly should be considered an 
>accessory after the fact. Note that in this case the leaker hides 
>under a cloak of anonymity.
>


The problem with this formulation is that Mr. Levin the 
accuser/defender of presidential prerogative argues casuistically 
that the anonymous whistleblower violated an unnamed law (presumably 
the Classified Information Procedures Act) by exposing the violation 
of the law by the President, who claims "inherent authority" as 
military commander-in-chief to secretly surveill and imprison, even 
torture, not only whomever he declares to be an "enemy combatant" but 
US citizens without the judicial review required by the 
constitution's 4th and 5th Amendments protections against 
unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination.

>Now, to the issue of damage to the national security. The 
>surveillance program involved one of the intelligence community's 
>most sensitive and fragile sources; signals intelligence. History 
>has shown us that each time the press has a field day, such as the 
>current one, on SIGINT operations, ---target individuals, groups, 
>or, countries will review their communications security and make 
>necessary changes. Often the changes made may eliminate a critical 
>intelligence source and blind us to an incoming attack.
>

Mr. Levin then leaps to the conclusion that "national security" has 
in  fact been damaged. He accepts on faith that the President is 
telling the truth when he says that he ordered this program to be 
targeted only against individuals, groups or nations engaged in 
support of terrorism under the authorization for use of military 
force granted by Congress, and that the program was implemented with 
the usual sensitivity to the right of privacy long exhibited by NSA 
and DoD. Sen. Daschle recently described how the administration 
belatedly asked the congressional conferees to add language to that 
bill allowing such action within the US, but they were denied, so 
Bush went ahead and did it anyway, rounding up the usual suspects 
(Yoo, Gonzales, Dinh) to provide legal cover. Whether his power-grab 
protected or damaged the "national security" -- and the civil 
liberties which make it worth protecting and defending -- is the 
factual question Mr. Levin begs, along with the unsupported assertion 
that exposure of this program forced changes in the targets' security 
and counter-measures and thus -- again presumptively -- eliminated a 
"critical intelligence source." History has shown many things, indeed.

Douglas L. Vaughan, Jr.
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