As NSA Probe Fizzles, How Much Damage To National Security?

Posted on February 15, 2006

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel — made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats — was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

They attributed the shift to last week’s closed briefings given by top administration officials to the full House and Senate intelligence committees, and to private appeals to wavering GOP senators by officials, including Vice President Cheney. “It’s been a full-court press,” said a top Senate Republican aide who asked to speak only on background — as did several others for this story — because of the classified nature of the intelligence committees’ work.

Lawmakers cite senators such as Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) to illustrate the administration’s success in cooling congressional zeal for an investigation. On Dec. 20, she was among two Republicans and two Democrats who signed a letter expressing “our profound concern about recent revelations that the United States Government may have engaged in domestic electronic surveillance without appropriate legal authority.” The letter urged the Senate’s intelligence and judiciary committees to “jointly undertake an inquiry into the facts and law surrounding these allegations.”

In an interview yesterday, Snowe said, “I’m not sure it’s going to be essential or necessary” to conduct an inquiry “if we can address the legislative standpoint” that would provide oversight of the surveillance program. “We’re learning a lot and we’re going to learn more,” she said.

She cited last week’s briefings before the full House and Senate intelligence committees by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and former NSA director Michael V. Hayden.

“The administration has obviously gotten the message that they need to be more forthcoming,” Snowe said.

Before the New York Times disclosed the NSA program in mid-December, administration briefings regarding it were highly secret and limited to eight lawmakers: the top Republican and Democratic leader of the House and Senate, respectively, and the top Republican and Democrat on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Captain’s Quarter’s comments on the fact that over 60% of Americans favor this kind of surveillance, with or without warrants at all.

Those kind of numbers have killed the momentum for high-dudgeon hearings, especially after the Alito confirmation hearing turned into such an abomination. No one wants to sit through that again. Most members of Congress from both parties now express a desire to continue the program, as long as they can add in legislation giving Congress more oversight, mostly as a way to justify all of the rhetoric already spent on the issue. By the end of the month, the NSA program will not even rate a mention in the paper.

While I agree that this has damaged the Democrats on the issue of National Security, I disagree that it will not rate a mention in papers by the end of the month. Special interest groups like the ACLU have launched a relentless campaign, and a Federal lawsuit over the program. Even if a probe into the legality of the program does not take place by Congress, the ACLU lawsuit will still continue and the fate of the program could end up in the hands of judges. While some legislators are proposing bills that would provide oversight into the program, this will not satisfy the appetite of the ACLU who are bent on disclosing and destroying the entire program, National Security be damned.

“The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,” CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing disclosures about a variety of CIA programs that he suggested may have been compromised.

The question America should be focusing on now is how much damage to National Security has occured through the leak of this classified information, and what traitor compromised America’s safety for partisan politics? There are some that are concerned with how much damage was done by the New York Times, and how much more will be done by groups like the ACLU.

“Does anyone really believe that, after 50 days of having this program on the front page of our newspapers, across talk shows across America, that Al Qaeda has not changed the way that it communicates?” Hoekstra said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”Source

I think Hoekstra has a legitimate concern here. I don’t agree that the program is destroyed, but we can’t dismiss the fact that the enemy’s knowledge of our tactics has been increased dramatically through the leak, and this thing isn’t over yet. We must also consider future information about that will occur.

According to National Security Archives press release:

“Under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Justice Department on February 10 conceded in federal court that it could begin releasing as early as March 3 the internal legal memos relied on by the Bush administration in setting up the controversial National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program. The National Security Archive, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (”ACLU”), this week joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking to compel the immediate disclosure of the internal legal justifications for the surveillance program.

So, as the American people in poll after poll have expressed their support for the NSA program, and the Democrats realize that this hurts them in the realm of National Security, we are still left with the question of who leaked this information. We need to get to the bottom of this.

Goss said a federal grand jury should be empaneled to determine “who is leaking this information.”Source
AJ Strata, who has been following the NSA stuff closely notes…

As it became clear FISA was stonewalling the same kinds of leads that would have prevented 9-11, any politician worth their salt was not going to stand against Bush’s decision. The media was played by PR experts – and duped.

While good for Bush and Co. this will rile up the liberal base as they see another Bush imperial coupe in the making. They will go ballistic.

Indeed, the propaganda campaign continues full force.

ACLU and Civil Liberties groups are concerned with the size of the Terrorism list. The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, and while only a small fraction of them are even American citizens the American Civil Liberties Union, called the numbers “shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising.”

This isn’t the last we will hear about this issue. The propaganda campaign is still in full force, and the ACLU’s lawsuit is right around the corner. We have to start asking the important questions like how much this leak has damaged our security, and who leaked it to the NY Times. Stop The ACLU will be an intervening party in the ACLU Vs. NSA lawsuit. If you would like to help, here is how you can.

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Comments

2 Responses to “As NSA Probe Fizzles, How Much Damage To National Security?”

LomaAlta on February 15th, 2006 11:03 am

I agree, the issue will not go away as long as ACLU et. al. continue lawsuits.

What I think needs to be done, in addition to fighting the ACLU, is to pressure Goss, NSA, Justice, White House, and Congress to go forward with investigations and prosecutions for breaking the secrets laws at CIA, NSA, NYT, etc.

The leakers should be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent. And, it should be determined if those receiving official secrets are also subject to prosecutioin. At least a few grand juries should be looking into it and calling government employees and members of the press in where the “lying to FBI” etc. charges can be filed if the witnesses are not forthcoming.

Whats good for Libby is good for the CIA, NSA, and NYT people involved.
RedSonja2000 on February 16th, 2006 10:57 am

I keep hearing a lot of screaming about national security being damaged because warrants must be obtained before wire taping US citizens. That screaming would have some substance if you couldn’t get a warrante retroactively or if they were ever denied (5 times out of thousands so far). It just doesn’t wash.

If you want to government to listen in on your private conversations, fine. Write them a letter telling them it’s okay with you. Otherwise–according to the law–they must get a warrant.