An article in Slate points to issues which the Left would like to amplify and accentuate
The storm of controversy notwithstanding, Friday's revelation that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless eavesdropping in the United States should come as no surprise. The press tends to shy away from covering America's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, fearing precisely the kind of scolding President Bush delivered to the New York Times. But the truth is that the NSA—which has an estimated $6 billion annual budget bigger than those of the CIA and the FBI combined—has a decidedly checkered history when it comes to playing by the rules. Both before and after Sept. 11, 2001, the secrecy surrounding the eavesdropping agency has obscured a dangerous institutional tendency to overreach.
In 1978, congressional investigations revealed that the NSA had spied on civilian anti-war protesters during Vietnam. The response was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. To prevent future abuses, the act drew a line between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement.
Now doesn't the above make it seem that the NSA had gone rogue acting on its own just because? But, of course, that's not the case
In 1978 ... Attorney General Griffin B. Bell testified before a federal judge about warrantless searches he and President Carter had authorized against two men suspected of spying on behalf of the Vietnam government.
Interesting how the Slate piece left out the part about President Carter ordering the spying. And, perhaps, it's telling that the article inadvertently (or not) equated the anti-war movement with the government of Vietnam, no? I would also point out that America was three years out of Vietnam in 1978.
But Slate continues with the article painting the NSA as an agency "off the wire"
Two years before Sept. 11, members of the House intelligence committee asked the NSA's general counsel for the internal legal guidelines that governed eavesdropping on the conversations of U.S. citizens. The agency stonewalled—not a good sign. The NSA's flimsy excuse was a Procrustean extension of attorney-client privilege, whereby any document that happened to be sitting on the desk of an NSA lawyer did not have to be handed over to Congress.
But, as it turns out, those legal guidelines were spelled out, not by the NSA, but by President Clinton's (in)famous Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick who said
"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general,"
What's more
One of the most famous examples of warrantless searches in recent years was the investigation of CIA official Aldrich H. Ames, who ultimately pleaded guilty to spying for the former Soviet Union. That case was largely built upon secret searches of Ames' home and office in 1993, conducted without federal warrants.
And
In 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects.
Previous administrations also asserted the authority of the president to conduct searches in the interest of national security.
Additionally the very same FISA Court from which Clinton Federal Court Appointee Judge James Robertson quit yesterday, supposedly "under protest" for the abuses of President Bush found
In a 2002 opinion about the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the USA Patriot Act, the court wrote: "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
Indeed, previous administrations have used that same authority
Yet many in media are in one of two camps: One camp which embodies the most partisan group accuses Bush of an unprecedented abuse of Executive Power. It seems that you can only abuse this particular power if you are a Republican.
The other camp, which is smaller, simply wants to dismantle our intelligence gathering apparatus altogether. The neo-Marxists/neo-Maoist contingent of the Left form up here.
Because, you know, when the Revolution comes, it would be better if the Government were unaware
