Warrantless surveillance: Jay rocks the 9/11 lie. . . again

It was apt that West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller chose Halloween to publish an op-ed in the Washington Post that once again tried to justify warrantless surveillance of US citizens by invoking the specter of 9/11.

In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, the Bush administration had a choice: Aggressively pursue potential terrorists using existing laws or devise new, secret intelligence programs in uncharted legal waters.

. . . .

Within weeks of the 2001 attacks, communications companies received written requests and directives for assistance with intelligence activities authorized by the president. These companies were assured that their cooperation was not only legal but also necessary because of their unique technical capabilities. They were also told it was their patriotic duty to help protect the country after the devastating attacks on our homeland.

Though I for one am not scared by the regurgitated talking points of the cowardly and oft-bunkered Vice President Dick-in-a-Box, I am terrified that a purportedly fully briefed Senator—a Democrat, no less—thinks that any of us should be satisfied with his contorted explanations for illegal spying and retroactive immunity.

Glenn Greenwald does a fine job of debunking the circular logic used by Jell-O Jay as he tries to distract us from his cozy relationship with the people and companies that he’s indemnifying, but he misses what is to me the most glaring fabrication.

In case you missed it, let me reprise a select sentence:

Within weeks of the 2001 attacks, communications companies received written requests and directives for assistance with intelligence activities authorized by the president.

Well, I’m tired of niceties on this one, so I’m just going to state it plain; THIS. IS. A. LIE.

As has been noted in books, newspapers (and here), magazines (and here, and here), wire services, and blogs (and here, and here, and here, and here, to link to but a handfull) repeatedly over the last two years, the Bush Administration, directly from the White House or through the NSA, approached telecommunications companies about eavesdropping and data-mining on US citizens within the United States over six months before the attacks of 9/11/01. This assessment has now been confirmed by documents unsealed in the case of former Qwest head Joseph Nacchio.

Since we believe that J-Rock, as a then ranking member of the SSCI, was briefed on some or all of these warrantless spy programs early on, and since he now assures us that he’s seen all appropriate documents concerning telco involvement, unless by “within weeks of the 2001 attacks” Rocky means within 27 weeks before the attacks, Senator Rockefeller is lying. He is not only invoking 9/11 to once again scare Americans into accepting unfettered violations of their privacy, he is using the terrorist acts of 2001 to directly deceive us about the nature and intent of the illegal surveillance programs.

I perhaps am not overwhelmingly shocked that another senator has been compromised by administrations bullying and corporate cash, but I am a little dismayed that critics of Rockefeller, the new Senate FISA re-write, and the Bush Administration’s domestic spying programs in general, still often fail to cite this very disturbing and revealing truth.

It is not simply a matter of scheduling; it goes to the root of all arguments both for and against the surveillance programs. Since the telecommunications companies were approached by the administration in February of 2001, then none of this is a response to the attacks of 9/11. And, since the spying is not a response to those events, then what were the NSA and the White House looking for?

If they were looking for terrorist conversations, then the September ‘01 attacks prove that the program was a flop. In fact, it is possible to go so far as to say that the giant dragnets cast by the intel/telco partnership flooded the NSA with so much data that it actually overwhelmed the system and buried much more valuable and readily apparent terrorist signal intelligence.

As I struggle to remain up to speed on illegal surveillance issues, I know all too well that there is a heck of a lot to read out there, but I think it essential that on this key point, all off us, the SSCI, the establishment media, and the blogosphere, need to be on the same page. Warrantless domestic surveillance of US citizens by the Bush Administration started long before the 2001 hijackings. Bush, Cheney, their attorneys, their intelligence bureaucracy, and the telecom industry may all have their reasons for collecting signal intelligence on Americans without a court order, but, back when the spying started, 9/11 wasn’t one of them.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Take the Terkel challenge

While Marcy Wheeler explains how Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and his Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have drafted a law on warrantless surveillance that not only gives retroactive immunity to the telecoms for their illegal complicity in White House supervised domestic spying, but immunizes President Bush and then WH Counsel Alberto Gonzales for their intentional violations of US Code and DoJ guidelines, as well, Studs Terkel, a plaintiff in one of the suits against the telecoms, puts the whole program in chilling context.

Terkel, writing in the New York Times, details a history of government transgressions that color his long life. From the Palmer raids, through the Red Scare, and on past protests for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War, Terkel’s humanitarianism landed him on many lists, including the blackest one:

In the 1950s, during the sad period known as the McCarthy era, one’s political beliefs again served as a rationale for government monitoring. Individual corporations and entire industries were coerced by government leaders into informing on individuals and barring their ability to earn a living.

I was among those blacklisted for my political beliefs. My crime? I had signed petitions. Lots of them. I had signed on in opposition to Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and in favor of rent control and pacifism. Because the petitions were thought to be Communist-inspired, I lost my ability to work in television and radio after refusing to say that I had been “duped” into signing my name to these causes.

Terkel explains how every movement for social justice was met with more secret government surveillance—of private citizens, journalists, even members of Congress—until a congressional committee with a backbone and a belief in the Constitution pulled back the curtain:

Then things changed. In 1975, the hearings led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho revealed the scope of government surveillance of private citizens and lawful organizations. As Americans saw the damage, they reached a consensus that this unrestrained surveillance had a corrosive impact on us all.

In 1978, with broad public support, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which placed national security investigations, including wiretapping, under a system of warrants approved by a special court. The law was not perfect, but as a result of its enactment and a series of subsequent federal laws, a generation of Americans has come to adulthood protected by a legal structure and a social compact making clear that government will not engage in unbridled, dragnet seizure of electronic communications.

President Bush, as Terkel explains, tore up the FISA law and violated the social compact—and, I might add, unilaterally voided the Constitution—purportedly to save the country from some terrorist threat. But, we now know that the electronic dragnet predated the attacks of 9/11, and so, in reality, fits more appropriately into the dark history of government repression that Studs Terkel has experienced for some 90-odd years.

Terkel understands that the SSCI bill violates the Fourth Amendment, runs counter to current case law, and deprives him, and all of us, of a chance to air grievances and redress the wrongs in court. But Terkel, in that proud and pragmatic way that he has, washes away the cynicism and invokes a wisdom that “Jell-O Jay” can’t even hope to buy with his tens of thousands of telco dollars:

Given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing. By revealing the truth in a public forum, the American people will have the facts to play their historic, heroic role in putting our nation back on the path toward freedom. That is why we deserve our day in court.

Can J-Rock, or DiFi, or any of the other members of the Intel Committee honestly say otherwise? Can “Give ‘em Hash Harry” Reid really contradict Studs? Would any of them, Democrat or Republican, dare to tell Terkel he’s wrong?

How about we ask? Here is a list of the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

Rockefeller (D-WV)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Wyden (D-OR)
Bayh (D-IN)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Feingold (D-WI)
B. Nelson (D-FL)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

Bond (R-MO)
Warner (R-VA)
Hagel (R-NE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Snowe (R-ME)
Burr (R-NC)

as well as the ex officio members:

Reid (D-NV)
Levin (D-MI)
McConnell (R-KY)
McCain (R-AZ)

If you live in any of these states, why not give your Senator a call. Ask him or her if he or she is aware of the Studs Terkel piece. Offer to send over a copy. Read a staffer the last paragraph about the American people deserving all the facts and their day in court. Wave off the SSCI rationalizations that Wheeler so carefully refutes. And then ask if the Senator stands with Studs Terkel or against him. Challenge them to tell a 95-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner that he doesn’t understand what America is all about.

I’m curious what you will hear.

(cross-posted to The Seminal and Daily Kos)