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The Washington Post reveals that “the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.” Previously, the Bush administration and the GOP maintained that the NSA eavesdropping program was put in place in response to the 9/11 attacks.
President Bush: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying. [White House, 5/11/06]
Former Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman: “This is authority the president does have. It’s authority that is consistent with protecting our Constitution and our civil liberties, and it’s an authority that is critical to learning the lessons of 9/11.” [CNN, 1/16/06]
But this latest revelation exposes the Bush administration’s post 9/11 power grab for what it is: an ideologically driven attempt to expand the power of the executive. Because the administration focused on implementing a neoconservative ideology in the wake of 9/11, rather than meeting the unique security needs of the nation, they increased the terror threat. They allowed ideology to trump reason.
Rather than pursue Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora, the administration dusted off pre-9/11 invasion plans for Iraq and diverted resources from Afghanistan to Iraq. Rather than disrupting specific terror plots through reasonable and legal intelligence gathering methods, the administration instituted warrantless wiretapping, overwhelming intelligence agencies with useless information.
While Democrats should amend FISA to allow for warrantless wiretapping of foreign to foreign communication, they must ensure that intelligence agencies do not target Americans without first securing individualized warrants.
As “more than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret eavesdropping program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips” that resulted from the warrantless wiretapping of Americans, “led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.” [NYT, 1/17/06]
America’s response to terror should be tailored to meet the terror threat. Unfortunately, the Bush administration applied an ill-conceived neoconservative template to the very real threat of international terrorism. Today, we live with its consequences.
[…] the Body Politik’s Igor Volsky points out that President Bush has claimed that the program was put in place in response to 9/11:” After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do […]