When the newspaper that
endorsed George W. Bush TWICE steps up to criticize him, you know something really bad has happened. The Providence Journal is owned by the Belo Corporation which also runs the Dallas Morning News (why else would a RI newspaper endorse Bush twice?).From
the Providence Journal Editorial Board:
Stop warrantless snooping
President Bush has been wrong -- and, on the face of it, unlawful -- to permit the National Security Agency to wiretap and eavesdrop on hundreds of Americans' international phone calls and international e-mails without warrants from the special judicial tribunal established by statute to issue such warrants. (The tribunal has generally been very compliant with administrations' requests.) Further, we note that the FBI -- not the NSA or CIA -- is the agency charged with intelligence activities in domestic matters.
The spying seems a serious violation: of the law, of executive-department-agency missions, and of separation of powers between the judicial and executive branches -- and also of basic American principles of due process and privacy.
More in extended entry...
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act says that a person violates the act if he or she "intentionally . . . engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute."
The potential here for Orwellian abuses is obvious. What, for instance, might various parts of the executive branch -- or politically connected or other individuals -- do with this personal information?
The administration's basic defense is that the snooping, which the president disclosed last week, comes within his purview as commander in chief, and that such warrantless snooping is sometimes necessitated by time constraints -- that the spying has to be done quickly, to collect information that might be very important to national security. But the fact is that the tribunal can usually provide speedy warrants. If this has sometimes not been the case, the administration could have long since gone to Congress to seek more resources for the tribunal, or a law that would streamline its decision-making procedures, rather than ignore the law.
That the executive branch has apparently been snooping in this apparently untrammeled way is deeply disturbing in a democratic society. Such activity must stop immediately.