Congress Did It!

The Administration pulls out one of their handful of effective but sleazy political tricks in defense of their domestic spying program: Congress knew about it.

You may remember this particular defense from, oh, only a few months ago, when The Administration tried to pin the failure of the Iraq war on the decision making process of Congress, claiming that Congress had access to all the information they'd had, and that Congress was acting completely without influence of The Administration. This, of course, was completely wrong:

A congressional report made public yesterday concluded that President Bush and his inner circle had access to more intelligence and reviewed more sensitive material than what was shared with Congress when it gave Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq.

Democrats said the 14-page report contradicts Bush's contention that lawmakers saw all the evidence before U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, stating that the president and a small number of advisers "have access to a far greater volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information."

Lies! Lies! Lies!

In today's rehash of "pass the blame" The Administration's noble Captain works the words... thusly:

Mr Bush insists war powers passed by Congress after the 2001 terrorist attacks give him the legal right to use the NSA to tap into email and phone conversations citizens have with suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.

"I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: it means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics," Mr Bush said.

While Democrats and some Republicans question if the snooping without warrants is legal, Mr Bush counters that he briefed Congress.

"It's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he's just breaking the law'. If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" he said.

Boy, that's a great question. I'm sure that documents coming in the future will corroborate this claim wonderfully. If, in fact, members of Congress were consulted, each one that took the position that setting up a boundless entrapment scheme to net bad intelligence without a warrant, particularly when getting a warrant for exactly these cases from FISA has been denied only 5 times in its history, and can be done retroactively by 72 hours with probable cause, each Congressman who took this position needs to be removed from office.

It seems to me that The Administration is using this tactic here for two purposes: 1) to pass the blame down, and 2) to attempt to dissuade the larger issue, which is that their goal is to claim endless Presidential powers. By claiming that they've "consulted" with Congress, Bush and Co shrewdly reduce the impact of that argument.

The bigger questions in this issue are very simple, regardless of the argument that these guys are trying to usurp unchecked Presidential Powers.

• Was this wire-tapping program itself in violation of the laws set up in support of the FISA court?
• Had the FISA court been consulted, and had focused searches been done, would they have issued the warrants? And, since this is likely, why would the Government knowingly avoid the legal court set up to handle exactly these cases?
• Was the scope of this program focussed so sharply that no collateral, innocent citizens were unduly tied up in this?
• Has the information gathered been so vitally important that, in retrospect, we, as a culture, collectively concede it is a necessary program?

None of the answers to these questions, and countless, better questions, fall in the favor of The Administration. They violated the laws, they did so knowingly, and they did so without need, and without benefit.

Rove wants 2006 to be the year of "national security" for Republicans. Tied with Rove's own [ongoing] participation into The Plame Affair, the NSA spying program makes for quite a menu of items on the republican platform. Their version of "national security" is playing incompetant, crony-protecting C.Y.A., outing undercover intelligence operatives for political tomfoolery, and claiming boundless rights to spy on anybody- as much as they please.

Boy. I feel much more secure this year than last. Phew.