FISA 101Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Thursday February 14, 2008
Because I had the flu yesterday and today, I have been subjected to far more television news than, under ordinary circumstances, I am able to bear. It never ceases to amaze how deeply confused and/or deeply dishonest reporters are about the topics they are assigned to cover.
FISA was not enacted in 1842. If we are "forced" to live under that law for a few weeks or even longer, we are not "going dark." We are not "more vulnerable" to the Terrorists Who Want to Kill Us. Even under FISA, the Government is fully able to eavesdrop on all of the Terrorists and suspected Terrorists their hearts desire.
FISA was enacted in 1978 and updated
multiple times since then to accommodate all the modern technologies Terrorists use, including cell phones and computers. It was even amended in October, 2001, when a Congress that was even more compliant than it is now gave the President every change he wanted to that law.
No need to take my word for it. Here is what the Leader himself said about FISA -- the law he is now attempting (with a drooling, eager assist from our press corps) to depict as some dangerous relic from the obsolete era of telegraphs -- once it was amended in October, 2001 by the Congress, during the ceremony where he signed those amendments into law:
The changes, effective today, will help counter a threat like no other our Nation has ever faced. . . .
We're dealing with terrorists who operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, some of which were not even available when our existing laws were written. The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike. . . .
Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology. . .In his radio address the following week, this is the lavish praise the Commander-in-Chief heaped on the newly amended FISA law:
The bill I signed yesterday gives intelligence and law enforcement officials additional tools they need to hunt and capture and punish terrorists. Our enemies operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, using the latest means of communication and the new weapon of bioterrorism.
When earlier laws were written, some of these methods did not even exist. The new law recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist. It will help us to prosecute terrorist organizations -- and also to detect them before they strike. . . .
Surveillance of communications is another essential method of law enforcement. But for a long time, we have been working under laws written in the era of rotary telephones. Under the new law, officials may conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists.Every President until George Bush was able to defend the nation by engaging in surveillance under FISA. That even includes the Great and Powerful Warrior Ronald Reagan, who vanquished the incomparably nefarious Soviet Union while adhering to FISA. It was only George Bush who claimed that we would All Die unless FISA was modernized, and
it was modernized -- repeatedly, to his satisfaction and at his direction.
FISA and the Protect America Act both
equally allow eavesdropping on the Terrorists Who Want to Kill Us. The material difference is that FISA requires warrants for eavesdropping on Americans (after the fact, if necessary) while the Protect America Act allows the President to eavesdrop on any Americans without having any oversight at all. The difference does not relate to the ability to eavesdrop on the Terrorists but on the nature and level of oversight from that eavsdropping. Moreover, the FISA Court is and always has been a rubber-stamping tribunal that does not ever block any surveillance on any suspected Terrorists.
Thus, we're not all going to die under FISA. We're not "going dark." FISA is a modern law that was re-written at George Bush's direction and which he himself said allowed for full surveillance on all of the evil Terrorists and all of their complex, super-modern means of communications. None of this has anything to do with the Government's ability to listen in When Osama Calls. It is only about whether the nation's largest telecoms will have pending lawsuits, brought by their customers for breaking the law, dismissed by Congress. Is that really so hard to understand and explain?
More:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/14/fisa_101/index.html==========
Jihadis throw a wild bash over the Protect America ActGlenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Friday February 15, 2008
What can one even say about this quote, included in Carl Hulse's NYT article on the Democrats' refusal yesterday to pass the Senate's FISA bill before expiration of the Protect America Act:
"I think there is probably joy throughout the terrorist cells throughout the world that the United States Congress did not do its duty today," said Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas.
This is the kind of pure, unadulterated idiocy -- childish, cartoonish and creepy -- that Democrats for years have been allowing to bully them into submission, govern our country, and dismantle our Constitution. Outside of Andy McCarthy, Mark Steyn and their roving band of paranoid right-wing bloggers who can't sleep at night because they think (and hope) that there are dark, primitive "jihadi" super-villains hiding under their beds -- along with the Very Serious pundit class which proves their Seriousness by placing blind faith in the fear-mongering pronouncements and demands of our military and intelligence officials for more unchecked power -- nobody cares about adolescent Terrorist game-playing like this any longer. In the real world, it doesn't work, and it hasn't worked for some time.
Americans are worried and even angry about many things. Whether Osama bin Laden is throwing a party because AT&T and Verizon might have to defend themselves in court isn't one of them. Outside of National Review, K Street, and the fear-paralyzed imagination of our shrinking faux-warrior class, there is no constituency in America demanding warrantless eavesdropping or amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms.
On one level, it's difficult to maintain any sustained optimism about the House's defiance yesterday. They were acting far more out of resentment over the procedural treatment to which they were subjected by the White House and, more so, the Senate -- having a bill dropped in their lap again just a couple of days before a deadline and told that they had to pass it, as is, and immediately -- than out of any principled objection to warrantless eavesdropping or telecom amnesty.
And it's painfully easy to envision more than enough "Blue Dogs" eventually joining their GOP colleagues to pass the Senate bill, thus handing the White House yet another complete victory, even if it comes a little later than it was demanded. In light of the endless series of events over the last twelve months, the hope that some sort of actual conviction will cause this obstructionism to be permanent is far too naive for any rational person to entertain seriously.
Still, basic human nature -- if nothing else -- dictates that having finally liberated themselves, however fleetingly, from the truly moronic rule of the Ted "Osama-is-Celebrating" Poes of the world, and having seen that -- as McJoan put it -- "the Democrats stood up to Bush, and the world didn't end," Democrats will crave more of the sweet taste of dignity and autonomy.
(snip)
If Democrats describe what Bush is doing clearly, simply and honestly, then reporters will write it down and read it. It's what they do. Even reporters can understand that when Bush says: "Give me all the new warrantless eavesdropping powers I want and give AT&T protection from lawsuits, otherwise we'll be hit way worse than 9/11," that is pitiful fear-mongering of the type authoritarian politicians always invoke to obtain more unchecked power. Just make that case -- as Democrats did yesterday -- and it will prevail.
More:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/15/poe/index.html
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