{"id":6406,"date":"2006-01-23T09:10:26","date_gmt":"2006-01-23T14:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6406"},"modified":"2006-01-23T09:10:26","modified_gmt":"2006-01-23T14:10:26","slug":"setting-the-record-wrong-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/setting-the-record-wrong-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting the record wrong, again"},"content":{"rendered":"

It should be quite a week for the debate over Bush’s warrantless-search program, as the White House kicks off what can only be described as a “political campaign<\/a>” this week. The president will defend the surveillance program in a speech today in Kansas, followed by remarks from Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, on Tuesday, and a speech from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the same day. Wednesday, Bush will visit the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland as part of the public-relations offensive.<\/p>\n

Will the Bush machine have anything new to say? It’s unlikely. The White House unveiled a campaign-style fact sheet<\/a> on the president program yesterday, and like the last one<\/a> on the controversy, it didn’t make a lot of sense. From the talking points:<\/p>\n

* “The NSA’s terrorist surveillance program is targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States.<\/i>” — True? It’s hard to say without internal understanding of the program, but according to the FBI<\/a>, the program may target<\/i> terrorists, but it ends up monitoring innocent Americans<\/a>. Regardless, the claim intentionally misses the point — the administration should intercept every terrorist-related communication it can; it should also honor the rule of law and allow for some oversight in the process.<\/p>\n

* “Senate Democrats continue to engage in misleading and outlandish charges about this vital tool that helps us do exactly what the 9\/11 Commission said we needed to do – connect the dots<\/i>.” — The White House hasn’t pointed to any specific “outlandish charges,” — I’m sure they’ll find one sooner or later — but the “connect the dots” claim is particularly unhelpful. Again, the FBI, to which the NSA leads are directed for investigation, has said warrantless searches haven’t produced life-saving, terrorist-catching intelligence; it’s produced a flood of useless tips<\/a>. In bureau field offices, the NSA material is viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more “calls to Pizza Hut,” one official, who supervised field agents, said. And, again, the claim misses the point of the controversy — go ahead, collect and connect dots, just follow the law.<\/p>\n

* “It defies common sense for Democrats to now claim the administration is acting outside its authority while their own party leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times<\/i>.” — Ah yes, the infamous congressional briefings. Those would be the same briefings the non-partisan Congressional Research Service found to be illegal<\/a>. For that matter, these are also the same briefings in which lawmakers’ concerns were ignored<\/a>. White House spin notwithstanding, there was no oversight, and the “briefings” were little more than cursory, incomplete<\/a> notifications to a handful lawmakers whose concerns were rendered irrelevant.<\/p>\n

* “The President Has The Inherent Authority Under The Constitution, As Commander-In-Chief, To Authorize The NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program<\/i>.” — No one outside the Bush administration seems to think so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* “The Congress Confirmed And Supplemented This Authority When It Passed The Authorization For The Use Of Military Force In The Wake Of The 9\/11 Attacks<\/i>.” — Member of Congress, from both parties, have insisted that this is total nonsense<\/a>. The non-partisan CRS said the same thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* “The NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program Provides The Speed And Agility Needed To Prosecute The War On Terror<\/i>.” — The FISA process allows the administration to engage in surveillance, and get a warrant 72 hours later. That sounds like quite a bit of leeway for “agility.” For that matter, if Bush found the legal process too slow, the answer is to change the law, not ignore it.<\/p>\n

If ever there was a time for a Dem rapid-response effort, this is it. The Bush gang is in the process of trying to turn their law-breaking into a political asset. To do so, they’re going to have to play fast-and-loose with the truth. I hope Dems are ready to call them on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It should be quite a week for the debate over Bush’s warrantless-search program, as the White House kicks off what can only be described as a “political campaign” this week. The president will defend the surveillance program in a speech today in Kansas, followed by remarks from Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}