Oversight, oversight, oversight!!!

Regarding my last topic:

The Washington Post put out a poll that asked Americans whether they found the NSA phone records program to be acceptable. 63% said it is an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, while 35% said it was unacceptable. This poll confirms the worry I talked about when the story originally broke. This approach by the news--in this case it's the Post, but they're all attacking it from this same angle (even more liberal shows like Keith Olbermann)--is only getting at one of the concerns about this program: how we are going to define privacy.

The more serious issue is being completely missed: how we are responding to an executive branch that is acting without adequate oversight and what this action says about our interpretation of executive wartime powers granted by the Constitution.

Why wasn't there a second poll that asked, "Do you think the program is legal?" or "Do you think the legality of the program is a significant concern?" In fact, this poll put out by the Post tells us nothing new. It fits with the response to the revelation about the NSA surveillance program last winter, which showed us that people are willing to give up some privacy for protection. Aside from the fact that nobody has yet to prove that either of these programs are actually effective in preventing terrorism (no, President Bush. Just saying it does is not the same thing as proving it), people seem ready to give the government the benefit of the doubt. That's fine. I disagree, but fine. This is debatable and will not be solved through public debate outside of Congress. Why? Because it has already been decided for you. And this is evident in the more important aspect of this issue, which I’ll cover here:

What does this program mean in terms of federal law and the constitution? What does this say about how the government is operating? The legality of the program is shaky at best. It violates the privacy sections of the Telecommunications Act and if they are eavesdropping then it violates FISA. Lost in the mess about what this means for our definition of privacy is the fact that the Dept. of Justice just canceled its investigation of the NSA surveillance program because the executive branch, in which the DOJ belongs, was not giving investigators the needed clearance to gather evidence. The executive branch will not be checking itself (no big surprise there), so we should be concerned with checks & balances kicking in here---we're not and neither is most of Congress, which should make us all very concerned.

To be fair, there has been some discussion about the legality concerns I'm talking about on TV and in the papers. However, the emphasis remains on the privacy discussion. The privacy discussion is important, but it should not be superseded by a concern that the executive branch is acting without oversight on almost all national security matters while treading on shaky legal grounds (and they're totally getting away with it without even a drop of legislative modification). Yes, the discussion about public administration is less juicy and it requires some knowledge about our system of government, the Constitution, and current federal law. This is where the news is failing us. This is their chance to show us that they can help inform the public what this means in all its breadth--not just in juicy "who is listening to you today" terms. They failed us before the Iraq invasion and after 9/11. Now they can make it up to us. Having said that, I'm not optimistic in most news sources to put the emphases in the right places.

So, like I said before, make sure you watch C-SPAN to listen to scholars, watch PBS to listen to mature and productive debates, and read your blogs to learn how this could easily escalate into much more than collecting the phone records of Americans: it may be a program where multiple federal agencies are actively eavesdropping on Americans who are not terrorist suspects but only know someone through many degrees of separation who may be. In Bush’s legal interpretation of executive wartime powers, such a program is perfectly acceptable.

Do you think I'm overreacting? Really? Did you know that the NSA has been given authority to share access to the database with agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency? I'm telling you, this is more than just tracking phone records for Al Qaeda while briefing certain members of Congress. We don't know for sure because nobody will investigate!!! Don't hold your breath for Arlen Spector to hold another hearing. Gonzalez attended one of his "hearings", avoided taking an oath of honesty, and then lied. We need substantial congressional oversight, which means real hearings (under oath) with real response—e.g., modifications of laws, new processes, punishment for criminality to ensure that we’re still a system of accountability.

I really think that one day we'll learn that this is a comprehensive effort to assert executive authority during what Bush believes to be World War III. How soon we learn it the accuracy of this will depend on how concerned we are about administrative procedure, not our own debatable opinions on how we're defining privacy.