And, yes, I DO take it personally: Glenn Greenwald: "nobody serious ever -- over the 30 years since its enactment -- suggested that FISA was unconstitutional or even problematic"

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Glenn Greenwald: "nobody serious ever -- over the 30 years since its enactment -- suggested that FISA was unconstitutional or even problematic"

The scandal is not about eavesdropping and whether the President should be able to eavesdrop without warrants but about the rule of law and whether the President has, as he claims, the power to break the law.

we desperately need to inject some reality and facts into the fisa/nsa spying discussion... unfortunately, given the attention deficit disorder of traditional media and the american people, it's hard to do that when the discussion is rapidly fading from the public consciousness...

FISA is a carefully constructed legislative framework which balances the need to have our government aggressively engage in foreign intelligence surveillance while ensuring that the past abuses by our government of eavesdropping powers do not repeat themselves. It has worked extremely well for 30 years and it was amended in 2001 at the request of the Bush Administration in order to cater it to the modern communication technologies which the Administration claims are used by terrorists.

Until George Bush got caught breaking this law and needed a defense, nobody serious ever -- over the 30 years since its enactment -- suggested that FISA was unconstitutional or even problematic. The opposite is true: we defeated the Soviet Union while our government eavesdropped only in accordance with FISA, and George Bush lavishly praised FISA when it was liberalized in the aftermath of 9/11 as a tool which enables the government to "conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists . . . ."

FISA is a law which enables strong, aggressive eavesdropping while preventing abuse, and there is no need to change it -- certainly not fundamentally. The Specter legislation provides eavesdropping powers to the government which are far too permissive and which simply are not necessary.

But we have to live with reality and the reality is that this legislation has now been introduced by the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and, I’d be willing to wager a fair amount, many Democrats (and some, but not by many, Republicans) will be tempted to support it as some sort of illusory middle ground. I do not believe this bill has any real chance of being enacted because the White House will vigorously oppose it.