writing to the radio

Most broadcast programs have done a less than spectacular job covering the Bush Administration’s illegal domestic surveillance programs or the ongoing fight over FISA revisions. Sadly, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer has been part of the poorly informed pack. I am hoping that the appearance today, in the 10am EDT hour, of Glenn Greenwald will help improve matters some, but with a vote on final passage of a terrible bill possible at any hour, it is most certainly too little too late.

With all that in mind, though, I was still inspired to shoot off this e-mail to Mr. Lehrer (much) earlier this morning:

In listening to the late night broadcast of the Tuesday show, I was quite surprised by Brain's remark that it was news to him to hear that the illegal domestic surveillance program was initiated by the Bush Administration prior to the attacks of 9/11. This was suspected for some time, and was confirmed during the trial last year of Qwest head Joseph Nacchio. Such information has previously been reported in the Rocky Mountain News and the New York Times, and discussed on To The Point (which WNYC aired daily prior to last week).

I, myself, have been writing about this for much of the last year (I humbly ask that you read a few of these posts, listed here. In those posts, I link to more reports about pre-9/11 domestic surveillance and some of its possible targets.), and I am sure that one as expert as your guest Glenn Greenwald would be happy to shed more light on the subject if asked.

Believe me, I hate even sounding vaguely like a conspiracy theorist, but I am well within the mainstream with my belief that the Bush Administration’s illegal domestic surveillance program is not and has never been primarily about keeping us safe from foreign terrorists. Senators Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd, Ron Wyden, and Ted Kennedy have expressed similar doubts. So have NYT reporters Risen and Lichtblau. Mr. Greenwald and many other very prominent bloggers have plumbed the depths of this subject, as has Wired magazine and Editor and Publisher.

The ACLU’s legislative director, Caroline Fredrickson, protested the speciousness of administration arguments for expanded spy capabilities with minimal oversight back when it became apparent that the NSA started domestic spying early in 2001, “How then will that keep us safer if 9/11 followed the expanded capability?”

There are many, many problems with this FISA "fix"--not just retroactive immunity for the telcos and the Bush Administration--but the fact that it codifies a program that was started, illegally, mind you, before 9/11/01 proves this to be a capitulation, and not a compromise. We already had a working FISA law when the Bush team took over, with provisions for surveillance in advance of a hearing, and a super-secret court that almost always approved executive branch requests. Yet, the White House still went outside the system, and did so when it had demonstrably little interest in the likes of al Qaeda. It makes you want to ask: what then is all this spying for? That a Democratic Congress--and now, the Democratic Party's presumptive standard bearer--would choose political convenience over asking this one tough question is both disheartening and disturbing.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

establishment media perpetuates myth of warrantless surveillance-9/11 link

Really, enough with this fairy tale already. If the events of last week involving the statements of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio have taught you nothing, perhaps you should go back and read some of the press from early 2006, or, perhaps, James Risen’s book. But no matter which of these sources you read, you should come away with the same understanding: The Bush Administration began collecting phone and e-mail data without a warrant and/or began eavesdropping on US citizens inside the country without a warrant before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Surveillance might—might—have increased after 9/11, but it is now increasingly clear there was plenty going on from the earliest days of Bush-Cheney rule.

Bizarrely, reporters like Ellen Nakashima and Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post insist on perpetuating the administration-friendly myth that the rampant use of warrantless surveillance was a reaction to the 9/11 attacks.

[The new Senate surveillance bill] would further give some telecommunications companies immunity from about 40 pending lawsuits that charge them with violating Americans' privacy and constitutional rights by aiding a Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program instituted after September 2001. That provision is a key concession to the administration and companies, which lobbied heavily for the provision.

Such fiction tends to buttress White House claims that this usurped and illegal power is a tool for fighting terrorism instead of something much more sinister. With Democrats like Jay Rockefeller (WV) knuckling under to administration demands on retroactive immunity and blanket warrants, the modern security state really doesn’t need any help from the press. So, Ellen, Shailagh, do your homework, and knock it off!

(cross-posted at The Seminal)

is this America? [sigh] you bet

Said Judge Edward Nottingham in his arguments restricting how former Qwest Communications CEO Joseph Nacchio could argue that he was targeted by the Bush Administration after Qwest refused to cooperate with NSA attempts to spy on US citizens without a warrant—seven months before the attacks of 9/11/01:

There is a quality about this that is almost fictional. Do these things really happen without congressional oversight? ... With large pots of money that nobody in the Congress really appropriates to a specific program? ... Do they really occur with this little control? ... Do we do things like this on a handshake basis without any bidding?

Nacchio’s lead attorney, Herbert Stern, replied this way, “Your honor summarized it perfectly.”

. . .

With a little digging, and the help of a few friends, I have found quite a bit more on Nacchio and pre-9/11 domestic surveillance. I expect to do follow-up to yesterday’s post after I have had some time to digest it all.

Stay tuned.


(cross-posted to The Seminal)

first things first

While it can be argued that all the news that’s fit to print doesn’t always get printed in the New York Times, I would like to take a brief moment to (again) critique a couple of instances when the question was not whether or not it was printed, but where.

First up, a story that appeared on the front page. . . of the Business section:

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company’s lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings.

While this is certainly big business news, since Qwest chief Joseph Nacchio is fighting to stay out of jail after being convicted on insider trading charges in April, it is so much bigger than a back section implies. First, there is the open question of whether Nacchio was singled out for prosecution after failing to cooperate with Bush Administration requests to wiretap without warrant conversations involving American citizens inside the US—and that is huge—but bigger, now, to my mind, is the revelation that Bush’s NSA sought unprecedented (and illegal) spy powers well in advance of the events that Bush and company now argue necessitated these unconstitutional intrusions.

This story was actually first reported in the Rocky Mountain News last Thursday, but it took three more days to migrate to the paper of record. If corroborated, Nacchio’s allegation proves once and for all that the war on terror™ is nothing but a smokescreen for far more sinister designs. If this story received the proper front-page treatment, perhaps it might convince more congressional Democrats that Bush/Cheney’s insistence upon weaker FISA requirements is not about keeping America safe, but is about stifling dissent and fighting political opponents. (Remember that there is already anecdotal evidence that journalists have been spied upon under some NSA program or programs.)

One congressional Democrat that does read the business section, and, so, does suspect nefarious doings, is Michigan Rep. John Conyers. In a letter to DNI McConnell and a DoJ official, Conyers has asked for a full briefing on pre-9/11 spy activities, and all relevant documents.

Let’s see where (or if) that story lands in today’s papers.

. . .

Another interesting story from Sunday’s paper could be found in “Week in Review.”

Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd voted against it. Senator Barack Obama said he would have voted against it if he had voted. Former Senator John Edwards implied he would have voted against it if he could vote.

And Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton? She voted in favor of the measure in question, which asked the Bush administration to declare Iran’s 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. Such a move — more hawkish than even most of the Bush administration has been willing to venture so far — would intensify America’s continuing confrontation with Iran, many foreign policy experts say.

While the “Week in Review” section is one of the better parts of Sunday’s New York Times, it is usually considered the province of analysis, commentary, and opinion, and not so much the place where the Gray Lady reports her best news. . . which makes Helene Cooper’s story (quoted above) sorely misplaced.

For this article is actually what I would call news reporting. It gives the reader some facts, like who voted how, and what the resolution means in the estimation of several experts. It relays the widely held perception that Sen. Clinton is not so much conveying her positions to primary voters as positioning herself for the general election, but also gives room for Clinton’s campaign to respond.

It is far more informative, and, as I see it, more interesting and important, than the latest fundraising numbers. . . which regularly appear on the front page—the very front page—of the Times, usually above the fold.

It is fine to want to understand how a candidate runs, but not at the expense of knowing where she stands. It is hard not to wonder about editorial priorities—or the priorities of the editors, for that matter—when the front-page news winds up in places like the business section, while money news winds up on the front page.

Update: Could the Nacchio/wiretap story have legs? Appearing this afternoon on the “Reporter’s Notebook” segment of the PRI program To the Point, Caroline Frederickson, Director of the ACLU's legislative office in Washington, details the story of Joseph Nacchio and Bush Administration warrantless surveillance for a national radio audience. Frederickson outlines the issues raised by the Nacchio revelations and amplifies what’s at stake as clearly, succinctly, and forthrightly as I have heard to date. Explaining the speciousness of administration arguments for expanded spy capabilities with minimal oversight now that it is apparent that the NSA started domestic spying early in 2001, Frederickson asks, “How then will that keep us safer if 9/11 followed the expanded capability?”

It’s a great question, and one I’d like to see asked by many more news outlets—and many more congressional Democrats.



(cross-posted to The Seminal and Daily Kos)