In his editorial "Do You Know What They Know?" Herbert wants to get to the real issue (we already know the wiretapping is illegal) which is, how far has this administration gone? This is not just tainted evidence, but a total undermining of how America defines herself - a government of, by, and for the people.
Here are some suggested questions Herbert would like to see asked today:
Who is being spied upon, and why?
How many Americans here in the United States -- or others who were lawfully in the country -- have had their phone conversations or e-mails intercepted without a warrant?
Who determines what calls or e-mails are to be monitored in the U.S. without warrants, and what are their guidelines?
How many of those who were spied upon were found to have been involved in terror-related activities? How many were referred to the F.B.I. or other agencies for further investigation?
Of those who were referred, how many were cleared of wrongdoing?
What kind of information is being collected about people who are spied upon without warrants but are not referred to law enforcement agencies? How is that data being used, and how is it stored?
Is the government collecting information about the political views of the people who are being spied upon? With whom is that information being shared?
What has been the nature and the extent of the objections from people inside the government to the warrantless spying?
Slowly, possibly irreversably, our system of checks and balances is being squashed by a small group of individuals. These people are OUR EMPLOYEES! We pay their salaries, provide them with tools to represent us - something which, in the last 5 years has been forgotten. These activities are performed in total secrecy and with unprecedented stonewalling and accountability.
The Bush administration, by exploiting the very real fear of terrorism, and with the connivance of Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, has run roughshod over constitutional guarantees that had long been taken for granted. The prohibition against cruel and inhuman punishment? Habeas corpus? The right to face one's accuser? When it suits the Bush crowd, such protections are simply ignored.
The president would have you believe that the warrantless N.S.A. spy program is a very limited operation, narrowly focused on international communications involving "people with known links to Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."
If that were true, there would be no reason not to get a warrant from the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The most logical reason for not getting a warrant is that the president's intelligence acolytes, who behave as though they graduated from the Laurel and Hardy school of data mining, have not been able to demonstrate that the people being spied upon are connected to Al Qaeda or any other terror organization.
The National Security Agency sent so much useless information to the F.B.I. in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks that agents began to joke that the tips would result in more "calls to Pizza Hut." The Times reported that thousands of tips a month came pouring in, virtually all of them leading to dead ends or innocent Americans.
The American public needs to know what's really going on with this spy program. "Liberty," said John Adams, "cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."
Take that, Bush.
