Inspired by Glenn Greenwald's excellent piece, I sent the following letter to Time Magazine yesterday:
This is not a letter to the editor. It is for Joe Klein. And it is for the editors to consider as well.
It might come off as a bit strong. But the substantive points are sound, and are non partisan.
Klein, and the editors, need to read this piece: http://www.salon.com/...
An excerpt:
Thus, in two short paragraphs, Klein manages to say: "I am absolutely opposed to [eavesdropping without a FISA court ruling], and I vigorously support this bill which grants [eavesdropping without a FISA court ruling, as almost its entire purpose]" ...[His] support for a new law that he does not understand and has not bothered to look at is instructive as to why the bill passed in August, and why there is such a danger now that it will be made permanent.
With respect to the underlying substantive issues, which Klein also misses, ours is not a government based upon "trust us," or a "government of good intentions." Our country, as Greenwald himself has also pointed out, is founded upon the principle that unchecked power will be abused. It was because of this principle that our Constitution was established in the first place.
Few are more staunchly hawkish on combating terrorism than I am. But this idea that doing so effectively and powerfully requires undermining some of the principles that make America, America, in order to do it, is a false one.
And what is almost as alarming, is the poor and misleading quality of coverage of these vital issues. They, or the laws and documents that inform them may be hard to understand, and perhaps Klein does not have the time (no pun intended) or the inclination. But then he should not be writing on them.
A democracy depends upon the quality of its mainstream information. That is a responsibility, first and foremost. And it is not being lived up to.
Yours truly,
Ivan Carter
In the linked piece sent to Time, Greenwald also writes powerfully about so called "beltway" Liberals (who are supposedly to the left of me) such as Klein, and that leading moderate news voice, David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, who have become apt symbols of how flagrantly and irresponsibly wiretapping and constitutional issues have been butchered in the mainstream media:
These are Good Men, seeking to Protect Us, and there is no reason to deny them the power they demand in order to keep us safe. That's how even Beltway "liberals" like Klein -- and David Ignatius -- show that they are Serious and Trustworthy members of the Beltway elite: by paying proper homage to the Goodness of high governmental officials who are trying to Keep Us Safe.
Read what they write about government surveillance, and the only argument one finds, literally, is that our Leaders need more power because they want to protect us. The very notion that such power should not be vested without oversight and safeguards is, to them, considered unserious, because we are talking here about officials who are good and responsible and would never abuse their power.
That is why Congress in August all but gutted the Fourth Amendment and vested the Bush Administration with the power of warrantless eavesdropping with barely a peep of protest from our Beltway elite. To the contrary, when they speak about it at all, they do so by warning Democrats not to impede these "important" protections.
In another piece a few days earlier, Greenwald also wrote of Ignatius' spin:
look at those two endlessly instructive columns on FISA by that bellwether of Responsible Serious Beltway Centrism, David Ignatius. In both columns, Ignatius rails against the two intractable, "absolutist" partisan sides which are "’blocking’ a ‘fair‘, ‘bipartisan’ solution" (quotes and emphasis added)... .
The only responsible, centrist approach is from those who beg the White House to be allowed to re-write FISA to make legal the President's warrantless eavesdropping activities. Those who opposed legalizing the President's NSA program -- on what ought to be the uncontroversial ground that warrants should be required for eavesdropping -- are "playing partisan games," "pursuing absolutist agendas," and impeding important centrist solutions.
Thus, put another way, in the Ignatius/Beltway world, if you believe that the Government should have to get warrants before eavesdropping on the conversations and reading the emails of Americans, then you are -- for that reason alone -- a ... shrill, obstreperous fringe partisan interfering with the Serious, responsible policy-makers in the Beltway...
Read the Ignatius columns if you have doubts. Or watch over the next few weeks as the Congress rejects as "too liberal" the requirement of warrants and thus vests the President -- again -- with the power to eavesdrop on our conversations and read our emails with no warrants. Literally, what was once an unquestioned hallmark of the American form of government -- a belief in the requirement of warrants before the Government could intrude into our communications -- is now, in our "Serious" Beltway discourse, a fringe, Far Leftist view of shrill, obstructionist partisans.
Ironically, after they had appeared, but before reading either of these columns, I had written Greenwald the following:
I do agree with your premise...I tried to assess that a bit last year, writing:
Such "Democratic" individuals as the Post's associate editor, Harvard educated, normally intelligent and reasonable, when they start parroting inane arguments that evince not even a remotely sophomoric understanding of the Constitution in order to seem balanced, or worse, because they want "big brother" to protect us, serve as a metaphorical talisman for the times.
I was referring to David Ignatius, the same columnist whom you briefly link to, who 19 months before that piece, among other things, wrote; "Both the administration and its critics are pursuing absolutist agendas -- insisting on the primacy of security or liberty, rather than some reasonable balance of the two. This way lies disaster."
The line in bold was pretty outrageous. Believing in the separation of checked powers principle, upon which our Nation was founded, to this Democrat, this former editor of the International Herald Tribune, and associate editor of the Post, has somehow become -- "an absolutist agenda," on par with the administration's "absolutist agenda."
Ignatius also wrote: "and [the clandestine NSA wiretap authorization] pits the President's power as commander in chief under Article II of the Constitution against specific legislative rules mandated by Congress in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
Don't you just love that creative phrasing? (even worse than the phrasing that he repeated again in the piece that you cite from; "should be brought within the legal framework of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence...")
[Quick side note: Regarding the commander in chief idea that Ignatius refers to, the Constitution anoints our Executive as commander in chief of the armed forces, "when called into the actual Service of the United States," nothing more. Article II, Section 2. The idea that the Executive, whose powers are expressly limited by the Constitution, can nevertheless do whatever it deems appropriate in the name of national security, other provisions of the Constitution or legislation notwithstanding, and propounded by such right wing radicals as John Yoo of Berkeley, and Christopher Yoo (no relation) of Upenn, and adhered to by an extremely small group of far right zealots yet adopted by the current administration, has been promulgated by the media as if simply "one of two equal sides" of some seemingly reasonable debate.
It is a tautological view; one that, in essence, simply does not support our Constitution’s most basic premise, but is too twisted to simply acknowledge this outright. There is no cohesive and logical rationale as to how this theory can apply to "some" types of Executive behavior or decision making, and not to others. It depends upon the assumption that the Executive‘s discretion is absolute -- since it is the Executive which under this theory has the sole authority to make that decision as to what is appropriate in the name of "national security." Thus, at the Executive‘s "determination," the most basic premise of the Constitution, that is, that ours is a government of limited, checked and separated (Congress writes the laws, the Executive administers them) powers, becomes wholly discretionary.
This point is being missed because it seems obvious that counterintelligence is related to national security. But there is no reason for the President, rather than the people of the United States, to be making that determination as to what powers are ascribable to government in the name of national security thereof. Moreover, if the President decided that all citizens of Arabic origins were a threat, and put them all in jail, or even if all people who were born on Tuesdays and Thursdays were a threat, and put them in jail, this cockamamie theory being propounded as legitimate, put into practice by our current far right wing government, and danced around by a compliant and half asleep national media, would apply just as equally as it does to the seemingly more reasonable idea that "spying" is a legitimate intelligence pursuit and that it is the Executive, rather than the people‘s prerogative of what actions, and how to take them, be put into place; preexisting law, Congressional mandate, or the Bill of Rights notwithstanding.
Yet here was the first sentence of a Washington Post article on Yoo: "John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the lefties".
Suddenly, according to the Post, believing in the separation of powers clauses of the Constitution, makes one a "libertarian," a "liberal" or a Lefty. Who would have thought that our Founder Fathers were such a group of leftists. You know, "Liberals," the same ones that extremist yet immensely popular leading voices of the far right like to lump right in there with despots and terrorists. Perhaps the title to Sean Hannity‘s best selling work of fiction, passed off as non fiction, should have instead been, "Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and our Founding Fathers."]
At the time I wrote those words, I had only caught the one column by Greenwald as referenced in the blockquote above, and maybe one or two a few months back. I had had no correspondence with him in over a year, and had read (and liked ) some of his stuff last year. Yet two moderates (I put Greenwald into that camp, even if he is passionate in his expression) -- both of whom were presumably exceptional constitutional scholars, one of whom actually practiced constitutional law and has become one of the most astute and intelligent blogger/governmental commentators in America, the other of whom is still struggling to get his dog to give him "high five" in order to get a biscuit -- both independently came up with almost the exactly the same, somewhat alarming, read on Ignatius' very troubling columns on an issue that goes to the core of what we were founded upon as a nation.
Men like Ignatius, let alone Congress itself, are manipulating and being deceitful about the issue -- too afraid to raise questions and serve as the check upon power that former Washington Post Managing Editor Steve Coll said is the press's main role, rather than as its cheerleader or idle observer.
Or perhaps Ignatius believes what he writes, which only makes it worse. He, an intelligent media leader among us, with years of admirable service to America in this field, has drunk from the "Please, We Trust you, Just Protect Us" Kool - aid to which many, with little robust debate or even honest examination of the actual issues, have seemingly succumbed:
That is, our government, under this Brave New World, with the ability, unchecked (save some abstract "approval" of the overall program and methodologies itself), to open our mail, to listen to our phone calls, to read our emails, or to throw alleged "enemy combatants," even if they be U.S. citizens, into indefinite confinement with no rights of habeas corpus, counsel, or even any sort of charge against them, so long as it is "believed" (which as a question of intent serves as no check at all), to be related to terrorism.
My conversation with a buddy in Europe, in fact my conversation with a buddy in the next state that "may" have been routed outside of the U.S., were about how cool it was to bail out of the F-15 above the carrier, feigning my own destruction in a fiery crash just off of starboard, waiting until the last second to pull my rip chord until just below deck level and out of eyesight, swimming quietly along shipside and into it the docking port, climbing up the decks and setting up my sniper rifle hidden from view from atop the ship's control tower, and picking off enemy combatants with my unlocked bullet resistant glass piercing GA 14x armor piercing scoped sniper rifle, as they attempted to take off in Apache J 12 heli’s and AV-8B Harrier jump jets from the main flight deck.
Having now driven and fired from simulated replicas of them all, we had a long conversation about the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Middle Eastern, Chinese, and American armored tanks, as well as shoulder mounted anti tank, and anti aircraft, weapon systems.
All of this, enough to make any junior level monitoring spook nearly crap his pants, until he learned, if he learned, that we were speaking about the online game, "Battlefield 2," played by guys all over the world. Perhaps he goes out and gets a copy of the game. Or perhaps he realizes, "this is someone who seems to support the other political party than mine, moderate, but says the far right wing is leading America down the wrong path, let's see if we can dig through all this stuff to find something to use against him, or see what the other party is up to" Or about anybody else in America, whose mail one day gets opened, whose phone calls are listened to, whose emails are read, by an intruding and peering government, whose ultimate use of them, no matter what it says, is not, and can not be, monitored itself without some form of robust independent oversight as our Constitution envisioned, and was created for in order to ensure.
The statement "I love it, but some people say they hate America," or referring to the latest Radiohead CD, "that is the absolute bomb," and countless hundreds of thousands of other routine examples and expressions, filter into the system. Sure, they are listened to, and then in theory, mostly, "checked out." If my conversations were all carefully listened to, as is the case with many others, most would see that I am a very moderate Democrat patriot that loves this country -- the people, the land, the principles, our spirit and our possibilities. So, according to the conventional wisdom, I am "off the hook." But what about someone who is more staunchly liberal, or someone who is rightly getting fed up with America. Or someone of Middle Eastern ethnicity. Suddenly their right to speech is sullied. And even me, my expectation is shattered, because who knows what political motives might inure to any one listening, particularly, as Nixon (whom his own former counsel, John Dean, says is nothing compared to the present administration) himself exhibited a proclivity to listen in on and use, even for political purposes and the perpetuation of his own power.
Aside from the notion that unchecked power will inevitably be abused -- it is a human trait and it is why our government was set up in the manner it was -- exercise some common sense here: There is a right wing in this country, which is prevalent in fashioning our policy, and even has its own extremely predominant faux news channel, that believes that almost any form of discussion that it does not like, "helps our enemies;" that the election of anyone other than Rudy Giuliani -- who on September 11 so heroically dangled from that helicopter amidst the flame and smoke riddled sky with his one good arm, while with his bad one he rescued helplessly trapped citizens from certain death moments before the Twin Towers' shocking collapse -- actually makes us less safe; that if one thinks we should leave Iraq, even, that somehow that gives "comfort to our enemies"(as if we should give a damn what they think), or even, that the rigorous debate and dissent that forms the backbone of democracy, "hurts America;" and that, ultimately, without realizing it, implicitly seem to believe that in order to fight what they mistakenly yet ad nauseum call "fascism," you have to become, well, just slightly more fascist yourself.
In this kind of climate, educated scholars like Ignatius can be so incredibly naive to believe that the issue is not ultimately of some relevance, and is in fact exactly why our Constitution was established in the first place to prevent any type of unchecked or absolute power?
Is this the kind of America, land of the free and home of the brave, so terrified of being attacked by this vagabond band of depraved religious psychopaths, that we would alter the very nature of our government in response therein? Where is the emphasis on working with the world to rid us of these cells? Where is the effort to get the known leader of this frighteningly depraved cabal of psychopaths, in Pakistan and elsewhere? Where is the effort to secure the vast amounts of unsecured fissile materials floating around the world -- and which currently represent by far our greatest threat.
Of course intelligence is important. Very. But is it too much to ask that there be a record, for oversight? FISA already even allows warrants to be requested for days after the fact. Is it too much, if our government is listening in on THAT MANY terrorist or "potential" terrorist phone calls (all terrorists must do is make telephone calls round the clock) to simply streamline the process?
We expend, in fact often waste, billions of dollars in various governmental related endeavors and processes. Sometimes foolishly, sometimes for good cause. Yet an upgraded system to intelligently deal with the counter intelligence efforts that some claim we need -- without turning our government into an intrusive, spying big brother easily capable, save for nothing but its own good will, from spying upon us all -- is that really too much to ask for? What the hell has happened to our priorities?
Aside from these concerns, there is again the more pressing concern that these issues are not even being handled honestly. Was Coll, when he wrote just three years earlier, deluding himself, or has there become, as our media sips from the community "please save us from evil ackmalabad al zaqiti," a collective self delusion that has taken place, as rhetoric increasingly substitutes for informed discussion and analysis.
I believe it is the latter. People are entitled to their opinions. People are entitled to be cowardly, and delude themselves into thinking they are such great heroes, or voices of the people or of our debate. But the media's irresponsibility, when mainstream information serves as the lifeblood of democracy, simply has to be addressed.
The media can opine all it wants, but its job is to at least be honest about the debate.
Ignatius, whether he is earnestly fooling himself or not, is being anything but. Perhaps my email alone to him is not going to get him to change his mind, or get the rest of the media to cover these issues more thoroughly, courageously, and responsibly. But a deluge of courteously written emails, letter, and phone calls, to the Ombudsman at the Post, to Ignatius, to others, will establish the point that the ongoing mediocritizatoin of the news simply is not going to fly any more. It is time to get this country headed back in the right direction. And if that doesn't work, someone tell George Soros, instead of giving all his money to these quasi political so called action groups, to start an honest, rather than cheerleading, newspaper in the Nation's capitol. To start a cable news channel, one designed to show just how nefarious Fox is. Sit down with the Board of Directors at the Washington Post, and at Time, and at USA Today, et al (and Congress, if you are listening, do your job and deconsolidate what has become an oligopoly of mainstream "news" across our land), and explain to them, and explain why, that it is time to stop. And that America, will accept no less. That is, if we want to live on as the free country that the same far right rabble rousers who don't seem to understand what democracy is, seem to love nevertheless incessantly proclaiming us to be.
__________
James Caan, excellent actor that he is, and rabble rousing hell raiser after my own (and probably, the President's, ‘til he turned 40) heart, nevertheless is a complete knucklehead when it comes to fundamental government and constitutional questions. And his views, which are also aptly expressed in this comment right here on this site, are indicative of the way this issue is intrinsically treated when it is not properly framed.
In a January, 2005, 20 questions interview in Playboy (which I highly recommend reading, for the articles, by the way), Caan had this to say;
If you're not doing anything wrong, why do you have to start yelling about the First Amendment? What the fuck are they going to see? The only people who should be worried are the ones trying to get away with something.
On the other hand, as Cardinal Richelie puts it:
Give me ten lines from a good man and I’ll find something in there to hang him.
There are so many things wrong with Caan's statement that it would take a series of articles to adequately address. Suffice it to say that not only does the threat of intrusion chill the ability to speak freely and without encumbrance, artificial or otherwise, it just simply does not work the way Caan, in his naively halcyon view having grown up in the greatest nation on earth, views it.
Most people, including many original Bush voters, do not take very well to the idea of big, secretive, government. But they just don't know much about it, because it hasn't been examined very much, or very accurately, by the media.
Most though are familiar with this vague notion of governmental spying. And many, adopt some form of Caan's viewpoint, that "if it is going to make me safer, I suppose it is all right." American citizens are not our founding fathers. Without an examination of the issues, and what they really mean, principles and why they matter are not necessarily going to leap up at them and cause them to see clearly what our very own Congress, apparently, can not.
Yet many Americans, when the issue is well explained, when they understand the principles at stake, when they understand the potential for abuse, what it may mean, if not for them personally, but for our democracy, become American once again: "Don't tread on me," to use Caan’s language, doesn't just mean to terrorists, "Don't fuck with us." It also means, to our government, "Don't fucking spy on us, either." And those aren't outrageous demands, either. The idea, propounded by Ignatius and other so called beltway pundits, that somehow these two basic American ideals are in conflict, is very profoundly, and very sadly, mistaken.
Most Americans, when they come to understand the issue, get this. But in addition to requiring the media to do its job, the issue needs to get out there, Americans need to be made aware of what this means, and why our country was founded upon the principles that it was.
Bruce Fein, Staunch Republican, and Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, is a partisan, and wrote the first article of Impeachment against William Jefferson Clinton. Yet, again, as a partisan, speaking of the President from his own party, Fein nevertheless states that "Bush's crimes are a little bit different. I think they're a little bit more worrisome than Clinton's."
A little bit? Still, for a staunch lifelong conservative, that is saying something. [Fein is not alone. The Cato Institute is one of our nation’s leading conservative think tanks, and it has this to say.]
Fein also stated, "The founding fathers would be alarmed by George W. Bush's 'trust me' defense for collecting foreign intelligence."
More than alarmed, they would be rolling over in their graves.
After partisanally excoriating Democrats with a bunch of stale and I would submit, inaccurate stereotypes, Fein, interestingly, also had this to say prior to the November, 2006 midterm elections :
So conservatives should weep if Democrats prevail in the House or Senate. But perhaps not. The most conservative (emphasis added) principle of the Founding Fathers was distrust of unchecked power.
The same principle, that, as Greenwald points out, beltway pundits like David Ignatius, and indeed, much of the press, in this (forgive the expression) new "doublespeak" world, has somehow turned into shrill, obstructionist liberal partisanship.
Portentously, Fein then wrote:
If Democrats capture the House or Senate in November 2006, the danger created by Bush with a Republican-controlled Congress would be mitigated or eliminated..
Not exactly what we have seen, is it.
__________
Ignatius and most of the rest of the media like to pretend this is a "partisan" issue. They like to turn everything, no matter how far right, and no matter how conservative, even, the allegedly "liberal" or "democratic" position is, into "Left v. Right," and "Conservative" v. "Liberal." (Even leading democratic commentators do this. EJ Dionne, considered by many to be the country’s leading Democratic commentator does this constantly.) But Fein, the staunch conservative, obstreperous absolutist Far Left Liberal that staunch Democrat Ignatius and other media pundits would make him out to be, agrees with me.
In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee four months ago, in which he called the Executive‘s programs "flagrantly illegal" (And despite what one might think by listening to the media, many other conservative scholars, not to mention almost the entire American Bar Association, agree), Fein concluded with the quote below. I am going to highlight the key point in bold which is already beginning to happen, and which has infested the media like a disease; indeed, along with the Congress, almost like a virus
If Congress leaves the Bush administration’s illegal spying programs unrebuked, a precedent will have been established that will lie around like a loaded weapon ready for permanent use throughout the endless conflict with international terrorism. If Congress slumbers, free speech and association will be chilled; political dissent will be muffled; unorthodox or unconventional behavior will be discouraged or punished; and, the American people will become docile, a fatal weakness to democratic customs and institutions. If the constitutional oath means anything, it means that Members of Congress are obligated to check and to sanction clear and palpable executive branch abuses.
But, without making excuses for what has been an absolutely atrocious performance by our democratically elected officials, it is harder for Congress to do its job, when the media mercilessly butchers the most vital of issues. The reason is popular perception, perception widely uttered by the likes of James Caan, above from which our national dialogue has simply not risen.
Please don't take for granted what "everybody knows" any more. Seek to inform, politely, with evidence and not conclusion, but firmly. And to hold our media, and our Congress, accountable.
How many polite phone calls have you made to various members of Congress recently? How many polite letters have you sent to your local papers? How many non politically oriented blogs and websites have you visited and invoked an educated discourse on lately? How many people have you talked to about these issues?
The more Americans are well informed on these issues, and care; and email, telephone, and request meetings with their representatives, the more this dialogue will rise up from where it currently festers, in the gutter of laziness and kool aid drinking presumption and ignorance.
And that letter at the top of the page to Time Magazine? One letter, or even a hundred won't make a difference. But thirty thousand, all polite, all direct, all firm, all as non partisan and as objective as possible, will.
Rather than just read, and get upset or call the administration, the press, or far right wing blogs, derogatory names, find a way to share this and other information, on this, demonized though it may be by this same press, the most popular political web site in American; and outside of this site, courteously, graciously, everywhere you can.
Because, to answer Greenwald's non asked question in his otherwise excellent post on Governmental lawlessness, people, including apparently, many even of the educated in our media, don't know.
There is a basic principle at stake here, that goes to the heart of why we were founded as a nation, and why our Constitution was established in the first place. As Fein puts it; "Our founding fathers decried secretive government. They recognized that secrecy breeds folly and abuses."
Is there any reason to think that now, somehow because we are threatened by international terrorists who would, ironically, in the words of our President, "seek to destroy our way of life," that this is somehow no longer the case? As for those who are willing to sacrifice this, to give up some expectation and privacy and potential for abuse based upon a trust me form of spying, once again one is reminded of those prophetic words of Benjamin Franklin, loosely paraphrased, that "those who would sacrifice some liberty for some security, deserve, and shall get, neither."