Yellow Dog [Part 16]

Fine. You asked for this, Marx.

So, you have heard me when I say that I am not a Republican, and you are wondering why I seem to be defending them. The answer is simple: We’re discussing an economic issue. If we were discussing a social issue—abortion, gay marriage, the posting of the Ten Commandments on the school or courthouse wall, embryonic stem cell research, the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology class, etc—I would be defending the Democrat position. On virtually every social issue [except gun control] I stand squarely on the side of the Democrats.

The reason you think I am defending the Republicans is because we are discussing an economic issue, and while the Republicans have sold out capitalism and are nearly as interventionist as Democrats, Republicans are not [yet] socialists. That’s the crucial difference: Democrats are European-style socialists...have been since FDR.

You Yellow Dog Democrats like to call the Republicans fascists because of their wrong-headed positions on social issues, and I agree with you. What about economic fascism? Why is there no freedom in your world where a person’s productivity is concerned? You know every true fascist regime in history was [and is] socialist...see Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, Chavez’s Venezuela...all socialist states.

When you call the USA Patriot Act and NSPD 51 fascist, I wonder where you’re getting your news. Whenever I have a question about legislation and/or an executive order, I go to the same place members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court go. I go to the Library of Congress and read a bi-partisan description of the legislation in question from the Congressional Research Services before I go to any media.

Congressional Research Services: Summary of NSPD 51

“On May 9, 2007, President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51, which is also identified as Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 20, on National Continuity Policy. The directive updates longstanding continuity directives designed to assure that governing entities are able to recover from a wide range of potential operational interruptions. Executive branch efforts to assure essential operations are similar to those that are broadly integrated into many private sector industries. Government continuity planning also incorporates efforts to maintain and preserve constitutional government, based on the assumption that certain essential activities typically provided by government must be carried out with little or no interruption under all circumstances.”

National Continuity Policy has been on the books for a long time. Abe Lincoln, for example, declared marshal law and suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War crisis; FDR imprisoned Japanese Americans in concentration camps with an executive order during WWII. NSPD 51 becomes effective ONLY in a national emergency, i.e. New York or Washington DC are leveled in a nuclear attack. It’s there so that our country doesn’t unravel into chaos during a national emergency. You better be glad it’s there. Take the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina and multiply it by about 85,000 localities nation-wide and you may get the picture. Trust me, if Obama becomes president, NSPD 51 doesn’t change.

You can research the USA Patriot Act yourself, but the story is much the same. Nearly every provision outlined in the USA Patriot Act was already in the books. The purpose of the act was to organize and consolidate US counter-terrorism efforts, to make sure everybody in law enforcement and intelligence was on the same page. The USA Patriot Act was bi-partisan, and the most controversial amendment to the law [the one you reference above when you’re damning Bush for listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails “without a warrant,” was passed three months ago by a Democratic Congress! Why did they pass it? Let’s take a look at what FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually says:


If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law: "On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program."

Putting aside for now the fact that the Obama Administration will have the same power, if you go to CRS, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008

"Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA."

It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.

This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”

The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.

The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.

ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.

Donn