Obama and Jewel vs NSA
by Maxwell Smart(8)
During the campaign Obama criticized President Bush for being too quick to invoke the state secrets claims. Now, Obama’s people seem to be using a tactic from the Bush Playbook. The motion filed by the Justice Department addresses the warrentless wiretapping lawsuit, brought by the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Some of us, big fans of Obama, were surprised when the new administration started sounding a lot like the old administration. Obama’s Justice people demanded that the Jewel vs. NSA lawsuit be dismissed on the grounds of state secrets privilege, and claiming that allowing that lawsuite to go forward would open the US to threats to our security. In Jewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies on behalf of AT & T customers with the goal of stopping the illegal, unconstitutional, surveillance of AT & T customer communications and communications records.
The KEY here is the word warrant-less surveillance. Hardly anyone has a problem with warranted surveillance, because if it warranted, that means the listeners have a good reason to believe that the people they are spying on are actually involved in illegal behaviors. What has been going on is that the NSA has been conducting a dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. Whistle blowers involved in these surveillance activities reveals that the government has been listening in on sexy talk between US soldiers and their wives or girlfriends. The whistle blowers revealed that not only did they listen in, but they invited others to “check out” these private intimate phone calls that are private, not in anyway a threat to the UNITED STATES, and certainly not illegal.
In the past we have wire tapped and conducted other surveillance activities with warrants. The warrants exist as a form of regulation. Our system has demanded that some judge some where had to be presented with the reasons certain people or locations were suspected of illegal activity and the surveillance moved forward if the judge agreed there was probable cause. This practice of seeking a warrant was our insurance against being spied on by people who just don’t like us, or who have impure motivations.
In the Jewel v. NSA lawsuit evidence has been gathered that includes undisputed documents and whistle blower affidavits. Former AT & T telecommunications technician Mark Klein has demonstrated that AT & T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA.
That Bush and his cronies would stoop to such behaviors and violate our constitution is, sad to say, not too surprising. That Obama’s Department of Justice would continue to follow the obstructionist behaviors of the Bush people is shocking, especially to those of us who are big time Obama fans. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann stated on his program that these Obama DOJ actions were what he called “deja vu all over again " .
Now I knew there would come a time when Obama’s administration would do something, perhaps many other somethings that I would object to, so this is the first of what could be many disappointments.
My grandfather use to say, “Why would I care if anyone tapped my phone. I’m not going to saying illegal so why should I care?” The idea of having to have court approved warrants for tapping a phone seems silly to my grandfather. I pointed out that there have been government shifts in some countries where religious activities became illegal or out of favor. There have been government changes that made differing political views illegal. I tried to make him see that while he may never do anything illegal, it was, at least in theory, possible for his faith, or his political affiliation could be a reason for people to listen in on his calls and to use that information to cause him problems and to supplant his goals. My grandfather could never see this, but the truth is such sins against freedom and civil liberties have and do, and will continue to be targeted by governmental agencies who will listen in IF they are free to do so, and do not have to get permission from a judge to place us under surveillance.
What Obama’s DOJ is doing is continuing the Bush obsession with executive power, Presidential paranoia, and a love of secrecy. Is Obama, like Bush, making an executive branch power grab? I hope not, but such actions set up a dangerous president and places basic American freedoms in jeopardy.
You don’t put a fox in charge of a hen house and you don’t give government the power to decide when to respect civil liberties and when to ignore them.
What is Obama’s DOJ’s rationale behind continuing the Bush raid on civil liberties?
Obama’s people defends the state secrets privilege because they claim it would place national security in danger if classified documents were made public and that is what would happen if they had to get a judge to approve each and every surveillance request.
Such reasoning is just plain weak. No one is suggesting that the government should just wholesale make sensitive materials available to the National Enquire and Fox News. Having judges consider sensitive matters in privately and rendering a decision as to the probable cause of a surveillance request is not putting state secrets up on a billboard.
I am a huge Obama fan, but the guy I voted for pledged to restore the rule of law, and that is not what is happening now, at least not in this specific instance.
Article submitted Friday, April 10, 2009 & read 2018 times.
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