In 2001, the Patriot Act opened the door to
US government monitoring of Americans without a warrant. It was
unconstitutional, but most in Congress over my strong objection were so
determined to do something after the attacks of 9/11 that they did not seem to
give it too much thought. Civil liberties groups were concerned, and some of us
in Congress warned about giving up our liberties even in the post-9/11 panic.
But at the time most Americans did not seem too worried about the intrusion.
This complacency has suddenly shifted given
recent revelations of the extent of government spying on Americans. Politicians
and bureaucrats are faced with serious backlash from Americans outraged that
their most personal communications are intercepted and stored. They had been
told that only the terrorists would be monitored. In response to this anger,
defenders of the program have time and again resorted to spreading lies and
distortions. But these untruths are now being exposed very quickly.
In a Senate hearing this March, Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper told Senator Ron Wyden that the NSA did not
collect phone records of millions of Americans. This was just three months
before the revelations of an NSA leaker made it clear that Clapper was not
telling the truth. Pressed on his false testimony before Congress, Clapper
apologized for giving an “erroneous” answer but claimed it was just because he “simply didn’t think of Section
215 of the Patriot Act.” Wow.
As the story broke in June of the extent of
warrantless NSA spying against Americans, House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Mike Rogers assured us that the project was a strictly limited and not
invasive. He described it as a “lockbox with only phone numbers, no names, no
addresses in it, we’ve used it sparingly, it is absolutely overseen by the
legislature, the judicial branch and the executive branch, has lots of
protections built in...”
But we soon discovered that also was not
true either. We learned in another Guardian newspaper article last week that
the top secret “X-Keyscore” program allows even low-level analysts to “search
with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online
chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”
The keys to Rogers’ “lockbox” seem to have
been handed out to everyone but the janitors! As Chairman of the Committee that
is supposed to be most in the loop on these matters, it seems either the
Intelligence Community misled him about their programs or he misled the rest of
us. It sure would be nice to know which one it is.
Likewise, Rep. Rogers and many other
defenders of the NSA spying program promised us that this dragnet scooping up
the personal electronic communications of millions of Americans had already
stopped “dozens” of terrorist plots against the United States. In
June, NSA director General Keith Alexander claimed that the just-disclosed bulk collection of Americans’
phone and other electronic records had “foiled 50 terror plots.”
Opponents of the program were to be charged
with being unconcerned with our security.
But none of it was true.
The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday
heard dramatic testimony from NSA deputy director John C. Inglis. According to
the Guardian:
“The
NSA has previously claimed that 54 terrorist plots had been disrupted ‘over the
lifetime’ of the bulk phone records collection and the separate program
collecting the internet habits and communications of people believed to be
non-Americans. On Wednesday, Inglis said that at most one plot might have been
disrupted by the bulk phone records collection alone.”
From dozens to “at most one”?
Supporters of these programs are now on the defensive,
with several competing pieces of legislation in the House and Senate seeking to
rein in an administration and intelligence apparatus that is clearly out of
control. This is to be commended. What is even more important, though, is for
more and more and more Americans to educate themselves about our precious
liberties and to demand that their government abide by the Constitution. We do
not have to accept being lied to – or spied on -- by our government.
