Bush's Wartime Dictatorship

[xiinfaniin]

Bush's Wartime Dictatorship

The threat of presidential supremacism

by Justin Raimondo

 

In defending his edict authorizing surveillance of phone calls and e-mails originating in the United States, President Bush reiterated legal arguments, long made by his intellectual Praetorians, that imbue the White House with wartime powers no different from those exercised by a Roman emperor. As Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer pointed out in the Washington Post the other day:

 

"Bush's constitutional argument, in the eyes of some legal scholars and previous White House advisers, relies on extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Bush said yesterday that the lawfulness of his directives was affirmed by the attorney general and White House counsel, a list that omitted the legislative and judicial branches of government. On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president's war-making powers in legal briefs as 'plenary' – a term defined as 'full,' 'complete,' and 'absolute.'"

 

The new presidential absolutism infuses not only Bush's foreign policy, which asserts the "right" of the White House to make war on anyone, anywhere, anytime, and for any reason, but also, increasingly, his domestic policies. The doctrine of wartime presidential supremacy has been dramatized, in recent days, in a series of disturbing developments on the home front: the utilization of "national security letters" by the FBI to snoop on thousands of U.S. citizens, the creation of a permanent database that amounts to an electronic "enemies list," and just this past week the revelation that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails originating in the U.S. – without going to the FISA court that normally oversees such activities.

 

This doctrine of presidential supremacy is derived, in substance and style, from the unrestrained militarism of the regime. That we are now in a state of permanent war requires that our government undertake a perpetual war on what is left of our civil liberties. Given the nature of this conflict with a formless, stateless enemy, more a concept than a combatant, there is no longer any division between the "home front" and the struggle against the worldwide Islamist insurgency, between domestic and foreign policy. We spy on Americans because we fight in Iraq, and, as time goes on, the converse will be true: we will continue the overseas battle in order for the regime to win the fight against its political opponents in the U.S. That the antiwar opposition, already demonized by neoconservative ideologues as "appeasers" and worse, will wind up being treated as "the enemy" should surprise no one.

 

Of course, the regime isn't locking up its domestic opponents and "renditioning" them off to some godforsakengulag quite yet. However, it is more and more treating opposition to its policies – or even discussion of its methods – as the equivalent of treason, and this story about how, in response to the NSA revelations, the president summoned the executive editor and the publisher of the New York Times to the Oval Office merely underscores how far we have gone in that direction. The president went out of his way to denounce the Times piece as "a shameful act," and this overbearing style is part and parcel of the developing tyranny. Lew Rockwell has posited the rise of what he calls "red-state fascism," as have I, and we can see, from recent events, that this phenomenon is quickly congealing from a fluid potentiality into a hard reality. All the elements of a new American fascism are in place: a regime that recognizes no restraints on its power, either moral or constitutional; the rise of a leader cult surrounding the president; and a foreign policy of relentlessaggression. And make no mistake: it is this latter that makes all the rest of it possible.

 

Without the pretext of a wartime emergency, the neoconservative ideologues who seek to reconcile constitutional "originalism" with a legal and political doctrine of presidential hegemony that would have horrified the Founders would be relegated to the margins and considered harmless crackpots. Today, however, the crackpots are not only in power, they are going on the offensive – with much success.

 

Just how much success is evidenced by the complete inability and unwillingness of the Democrats to stand up against this systematic assault on our liberties at the most crucial point: that is, at the time it was initiated. This is underscored by the fact that Sen. Jay Rockefeller is coming out in public against the NSA eavesdropping only now that it is politically popular to do so. When it really counted, however, those few congressional Democrats who were let in on the secret unauthorized wiretaps, such as Rockefeller and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, said nothing. In the summer of 2003, Rockefeller wrote to Vice President Dick Cheney that, while expressing "concerns" about bypassing the FISA court, he refused to pass judgment: "As you know," he wrote, "I am neither a technician or an attorney," and he therefore felt "unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse" the NSA intercepts.

 

Could a wimpier "opposition" even be imagined? Rockefeller held this secret close to his chest for years, as did Pelosi. These Weimar Democrats are gutless wonders, fully complicit in the regime's assault on our liberties and the constitutional order. To anyone looking to the Democratic Party as the locus of an effective opposition to red-state fascism, I would strongly suggest that they are setting themselves up for a severe disappointment – and that they'd best look elsewhere

 

Source

[STOIC]

Xiin, What scares me is the notion that the fourth amendment’s pillar of “probable cause†can be used in criminal cases and terorist cases (You can always use the "probable cause" in any legal matter with the right authority). This decision is allowing the federal government to eavesdrop on our phone conversation without notifying us. The fourth amendment was our safe guard against the intrusion of Neo-cons like Bush. The Texas boy with the bed wetting Liberals have watered down the Americans right of liberty. It seems the cowboy did not consult his legal advisers before he mistook that “probable cause†is something you can bypass by just signing off a paper. In the Law “probable cause†is believed to have happen when there is evidence that the person has committed the crime or is about to commit the crime . Senator Feingold and other Liberals are now vociferous; we will see if this will bring any impeachment to our Texas boy!

 

PS do you happen to watch "the news hour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS? They usually have a good one hour analysis of the news.

[Yeniceri]

^^

 

Homie, if they (U.S. authorities) want you, all laws are actually against you. In times of war, U.S. presidents are known to suspend certain "civil liberties." Remember that Abe Lincoln suspended habeas corpus under the pretext of the nation being "at war" - the legality of such an action is still being debated, over a century and a half later.

 

However, I don't think the article captured the true essence of the entire saga. Get this:

 

Since 1978, when the FISA court opened, 19,000 requests for warrants have been made and

only

a handful rejected.

A commentator on CNN said that number is less than 10 cases rejected. If the Bush admin used legal channels, it would've been a virtual green-light and they wouldn't be stuck in this mud.

 

But does George care...? That's a whole new topic.

[xiinfaniin]

Stoic, in my estimation the worst times in Bush presidency are behind us. He is a waning star now. His opponents are getting bolder. His staunchest loyalists are getting unsure and hesitant. And the media, which seemed timidly subservient before, is now daring to defy him and expose the shadowy policies he secretly enacted. Though a lot would depend how forcefully the senator from Wisconsin drives this, I can see how Bush could be in a deep trouble, domestically.

 

Yeniceri, the question is not if Bush cares, rather it is if people care. I think they do. These laws were put in place for a reason. Lets see how this plays out.

 

P.S: Stoic, yes, I do watch PBS and since I don’t have cable, it is one my news sources. This news outlet has very impressive educational programs; Nova, Frontline, and other useful ones.

[Qandalawi]

This decision is allowing the federal government to eavesdrop on our phone conversation without notifying us.

I thought they already do this in American, don't they? Here in the UK once the British intellegence did same thing to the Secretary General of the UN Mr Kofi and listened his coversations. There and then cabinet member Clair Short blew the whistle, weeks of political discourse followed, the don Blair and his cronies felt the heat few days, later as ussual overcame all odds and got on with his life, he is the big don here!

 

They don't ussually do that in America? Noah?

[Paragon]

The question I always wished to ask Bush was, if interception restrictions were put in place during the bi-polar US/Soviet balance of power, where the threat to US national security was existential, how can he justify his acts of taping American citizens with the pretext of terrorism (which is insignificant really, compared to thermal/nuclear threat)? Do Bush's advisors really pay attention to the history of American foreign policy when in their decision-makings? :confused:

[xiinfaniin]

^^Bush is not a particularly bright guy! Few angry men got hold on his ears. And as you know, good Paragon, angry people tend to make wrong decisions. I think that answers your question.

[ElPunto]

Originally posted by Paragon:

The question I always wished to ask Bush was, if interception restrictions were put in place during the bi-polar US/Soviet balance of power, where the threat to US national security was existential, how can he justify his acts of taping American citizens with the pretext of terrorism (which is insignificant really, compared to thermal/nuclear threat)? Do Bush's advisors really pay attention to the history of American foreign policy when in their decision-makings? :confused:

Very good point - but then I guess the answer is: Bush and his ilk consider Muslims not to be American citizens in the fullest sense of the word. Words like 'fifth column' and 'disloyal' started to surface in the wake of 9/11 and that mindset is entrenched in this administration, nothwithstanding their public proclamations to the contrary.

[Faarax-Brawn]

^^

Are you seriously shocked that the inteligence service is eavesdropping? These adminstration has done far worse things.I.E: invading a whole country~. Hello People????

 

 

One the other hand,Unless you are hiding something and or perhaps are upto no good; this should not bother law obeying citizens.

[xiinfaniin]

^^And are you seriously not bothered by it ?

[Faarax-Brawn]

^Runtii,why should i be shocked?

 

Bothered or not,my civil liberty flew out of my corolla's daaqad the day after 9/11.

 

I will have you know that i beleived i was tapped days after 9/11.[Am dead serious Xiin].

 

Waxey qaadan ayeey lehyihin sxb.Laws will be broken at the pretext of 'This war on Terrorism" So long as this adminstration is in power,this is caano.

 

I say saddle up,sxb

[xiinfaniin]

^^I can’t blame you being resigned to your fate. And you’re right that there isn’t much anyone could do.

 

I don’t think, though, that you don’t appreciate the significance of this matter. Do you not feel good about the fact that Bush has been put in the defense about this? I still think there's so much one president could do and like when he is reminded about the legal limits of his presidential power.

 

P.S: who knows they been listening what poor Xiin was saying to his friends.

[STOIC]

Trust Him With Our Rights? No.

By Richard Cohen

 

Thursday, December 22, 2005; Page A29

 

George Bush's problem is that Washington is not a courtroom. If it were, he or his lawyer (Dick Cheney?) could rise and object to the mention of his "previous convictions." That way, every offense against custom, law, international agreements and common sense could be treated in isolation. Too bad for Bush, he has a rap sheet.

 

It is his record of nonstop belligerence toward anything that would limit his powers that works against him as he tries to make a case for what in shorthand is called domestic spying. Any other president would have earned the solicitous attention and understanding of the country, including his critics. After Sept. 11, 2001, we were all willing to make some accommodations. If the president wanted to tap some phones, let him tap. Better that than another terrorist attack.

 

 

The trouble with Bush is that it is hard to separate the reasonable from the unreasonable. It seems reasonable to me to listen in on phone calls from overseas to people here -- Americans or not -- if there is any link at all to suspected terrorists. If, say, a cell phone is found with certain numbers on it, I would monitor them all. That might not meet a strict legal standard, but it does seem to be common sense. With all due regard to law, the highest law of all is "better safe than sorry."

 

But a reasonable stretching of the law in this respect becomes mighty suspect and somewhat scary when everything else is brought to mind. After all, the very same people who assure us that they are merely being prudent -- trust us -- are the same guys who held out until the last minute to retain torture as an option in questioning terrorist suspects and others. They are the same people -- Cheney in particular -- who are so tone-deaf to appearances, not to mention the opinions of the military, that they would publicly fight a restriction on torture. They do have a point -- not a persuasive one, mind you, but a point nonetheless -- but they see it as more important than anything else, even America's post-Abu Ghraib image.

 

Right after Sept. 11 the Bush administration announced that it had no use for the Geneva Conventions. It would apply them as it saw fit -- and it did not see fit when it came to terrorists. These terrorists, after all, made war by no rules. Why should we abide by any? The answer, as many military officers said, is that we still could hold our enemies to a standard of conduct toward prisoners. If we did not adhere to it ourselves, there was no chance they would. The Bush administration brushed aside these objections. It established a vast Siberia that could be anywhere and where a suspect could be held forever on charges that were never brought.

 

So an administration that makes something of a reasonable case when it comes to tapping the international phone calls of American citizens has its standing and veracity considerably weakened by what went before. The White House cannot explain why it did not ask Congress for this authority because, it is now clear, it does not want to ask Congress for anything. It will not explain why it could not seek warrants from a judge because, really, it does not want to seek warrants from a judge. This is the Louis XIV school of government: In matters of national security, Bush must say to himself, he is the state.

 

Such a president cannot be trusted. In Bush's case, the extra inch that would be given another president in wartime has to be measured out in increments of tenths. He is so suffused with his own sense of righteousness that he cannot imagine his laws being abused -- not by him, certainly, and not by his chummy group of nicknamed nincompoops, either. He listens to Cheney, who still smarts from post-Watergate reforms that made the Gerald Ford presidency less imperial than Richard Nixon's -- and on purpose. Cheney was Ford's chief of staff.

 

In courtroom trials, it does not matter what went before. The fact that the defendant had robbed does not necessarily mean that he has robbed again. But life is about rap sheets -- reputations and permanent records and personnel files. Read George Bush's and then ask yourself if it was exigency or ideology that prompted him to tap the international calls of American citizens without showing a court why. In his case, the record speaks for itself.

 

cohenr@washpost.com

Sources

[xiinfaniin]

^^Good one STOIC.Thanks.

 

Here is one more.

--------------------------------------------------

Domestic spying indicates changes at the NSA

Supersecret agency moves to gather wide spectrum of info in real time

 

ANALYSIS

By Robert Windrem

Investigative producer

NBC News

Updated: 6:16 p.m. ET Dec. 21, 2005

 

 

It’s not your father’s NSA, and that may be at the heart of the current domestic spy scandal.

 

The National Security Agency, the nation’s supersecret electronic spy agency, has moved from just intercepting “information in motion†to seeking out “information at rest.†It is seeking out information, not passively waiting for it to arrive, an outgrowth of Bush administration policy that favors intervention rather than retaliation after the fact.

 

What’s the difference?

 

Information in motion is data moving between one person or computer to another. Information at rest is that which sits in a computer or in a cell phone that is vulnerable to penetration via the Internet. One is interception, the other intrusion.

 

 

And that distinction, say both government officials and intelligence historians, could be the reason why President Bush decided to go around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as his five predecessors did, and instead relied on the executive powers of the president to order the spying. He contends that the FISA Court, which approves secret warrants for spying inside the U.S., did not permit the intelligence community to move quickly enough to protect the American people.

 

At least one member of the secret court, U.S. District Judge James Robertson, strongly disagreed with Bush's contention and is resigning from the court in protest.

 

A dissenting view

But officials and others say the issue is more related to the manner in which the information was gathered rather than whether the FISA court can act fast. The administration wants a web cast wide, broad enough to gather information on a broad spectrum of individuals in real time, an eventuality the administration would argue that was not foreseen by those who wrote the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978.

 

“It’s a technical issue, one related to link analysis,†said one former intelligence official in trying to explain the need without providing detail on why the president shunned the FISA Court.

 

What does that mean?

 

William M. Arkin, an NBC News military analyst, thinks he knows. Instead of simply intercepting a single phone or a single e-mail address, the NSA is now taking whatever it can get from a variety of sources, including the hard drives of terrorist computers, and creating wide “influence nets†or “social network analyses†that encompass not just the original target, but his or her contacts. In some cases, the casting of such a wide net can lead to surveillance of thousands of people.

 

“It’s much broader than just telephone calls or emails,†says Arkin. “It’s taking an enormous amount of data — say all the phone calls between the U.S. and Pakistan — and sorting it and resorting it in different ways.â€

 

That information, he says, can be “data-mined†to produce a network ideal for looking at a terrorist organization and its various linkages.

 

The means by which people are identified as terrorists changes as well in this new world. In fact, the first step may not be a name, but a profile.

 

“One standard, the old one, is that you’re monitoring a person or group,†Arkin says. “The other is you have established a profile and you’re looking for people who might fit that profile … for example, Muslim men who go to strip clubs. Don’t laugh. All the 9/11 hijackers went to strip clubs.â€

 

 

Massive data grabs

“Motivations, socioeconomic backgrounds, connections, you might able to identify them in the massive link-analysis world, it’s about extracting intelligence from massive amounts of data," Arkin says, "In fact, the NSA secret program to develop advanced analytic techniques is called NIMD, Novel Intelligence in Massive Data.â€

 

Drawing those “influence nets†requires that data must be identified, captured and analyzed.

 

“The level at which the cat and mouse game between the NSA and the terrorists is being played out is incredibly elevatedâ€, says Patrick Keefe, author of “Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdroppingâ€. It is not just can you listen in on a phone call. That’s very good for tracking info and people, but the desire is to get at the computer themselves get at information at rest.â€

 

That "take" can include telephones, faxes and e-mails, of course, but also cell phone data, text messaging, chat room identities and information contained on a target's computer hard drive, including contacts, word documents, audio and video clips, etc. In theory and in practice, all of it is remotely available if the computer is connected to the Internet. In some cases, if the NSA can get collection devices close enough to a computer, it can even access files if the computer is not connected to the Internet.

 

“So you essentially get a reversal of the traditional paradigm where you or I would go to the computer,†adds Keefe. “We would sit down at our computer and we look out at the Internet through the computer. At the NSA, they actually use the Internet to look into people's computers.â€

 

Casting a very wide net

The intelligence community, while not confirming specifics, has given hints of how broad the net is. In a statement to the 9/11 Commission in 2002, the FBI described its participation in a secret center in northern Virginia, the National Media Exploitation Center.

 

“The National Media Exploitation Center was established in late 2001 to coordinate FBI, CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) efforts to analyze and disseminate information gleaned from millions of pages of paper documents, electronic media, videotapes, audiotapes, and electronic equipment seized by the U.S. military and Intelligence Community in Afghanistan and other foreign lands,†the FBI statement read.

 

And it’s not just about gathering data on a possible suspect, it’s about finding them.

 

All of this data can be collected for creating profiles that can help track an individual. The NSA has developed "Geo-Location" profiles. Once it knows what media a target uses, it can track him or her as they move, permitting the U.S. or its allies to track them, sometimes in real time. In fact, the NSA doesn't even need to know a target's identity. If link analysis tips the NSA to someone who has an interesting profile, the CIA or friendly intelligence service can track that individual to determine his or her identity.

 

A Western diplomat told NBC News this spring that the NSA had the city of Riyadh so “wired†that, using traditional methods and geo-location profiles, it was able to provide Saudi security forces with the addresses of specific "safe houses" where al-Qaida operatives were hiding.

 

In response, the diplomat said the terrorists were forced to communicate via short "bursts" of communications while driving at high speed around the Saudi capital's ring road. The fact that the diplomat knew of the counterstrategy indicates that the U.S. knew it as well and was capable of targeting it.

 

Of course, the challenge of all of this is finding the right data.

 

The problem is being able to pick the electronic needle out of the electronic pile,†says Jim Bamford, author of several books on the NSA, including the classic “Puzzle Palace.†“And that's always been the, the failing of intelligence community, not just not collecting it, which they're able to do very well, but actually being able to zero in on one key communication.

 

“If you look at it, you can pick up 2 million pieces of communication an hour from a listening post, you can have computers filter out a lot of that, but eventually in order to get a piece of that communications from that huge stream into a memo on the president's desk, it's going to take human beings and that's sort of the Achilles' heel for NSA.â€

 

 

More changes to come

The future is more likely to produce more data —different data.

 

“What about London and the bombings of the Underground?†asks Arkin. “What’s to stop intelligence agencies from going back and looking at surveillance video? You could use a combination of biometrics and other data obtained on motivations and social network analysis. An intel analyst could hope to identify tip-offs that might be automated in the future: a combination, say, of facial recognition with groups of men wearing backpacks.â€

 

It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the capabilities available could create, if left unchecked, the ultimate police state. The question is: Who watches the watchers? Who monitors the communication monitors?

 

President Bush says there are enough safeguards in place.

 

“We're guarding the civil liberties by monitoring the program on a regular basis, by having the folks at NSA, the legal team, as well as the inspector general, monitor the program, and we're briefing Congress,†he said at his news conference on Monday. “This is a part of our effort to protect the American people. The American people expect us to protect them and protect their civil liberties. I'm going to do that. That's my job, and I'm going to continue doing my job.â€

 

Not good enough, say congressional and other critics, who note the restrictions placed on congressional oversight.

 

The domestic spying is a "waived special access program" meaning that the administration presented it to the so-called “Big Eight†on Capitol Hill — the speaker and minority leader of the House, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the chair and ranking member of the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence.

 

Checks and balances questioned

These "waived SAP's" are the most secret programs carried out by the intelligence community and the congressional leaders are not permitted to discuss with anyone else — not the staff of the committee, not the counsel of the committee, not other members, not their families, etc.

 

Unless a majority of the Big Eight objects, the program is deemed approved, or "waived," and goes forward. As far as we know, only one of the Big Eight, Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., objected.

 

Rockefeller went so far as to pen a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney expressing not only his reservations about the plan, but also about the restrictions placed on him.

 

 

As for the program itself, Rockefeller, then the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote of his “concern regarding the direction the administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance.â€

 

On the lack of oversight, he was just as troubled.

 

“Clearly, the activities we discussed raise profound oversight issues,†Rockefeller wrote. “As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney. Given the security restrictions associated with this information, and my inability to consult staff or counsel on my own, I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities.â€

 

Over the next few months, the NSA’s capabilities are likely to be exposed and debated, something the agency is not happy about. It never is. The question is whether the exposure and debate will result in an advantage for the terrorists, as the president argues, or an advantage for civil liberties protection, as his critics hope.

 

Robert Windrem is an investigative producer for NBC News, based in New York

 

© 2005 MSNBC.com

[Muhammad]

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —President George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

 

( click here to listen)