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Do You Hear What I Hear...

Since the story about the National Security Agency's surveillance broke several weeks ago, the Bush Administration has been on the defensive. While traditionally a strong GOP issue, national security concerns are an area in which the Democrats have been trying hard to make inroads. This can make for some uncomfortable jostling for position when civil liberties are also high on your traditional list of interests. For the Republican side at least it appears such wishy washy worries are safely discarded - after all, if you're against eavesdropping, then you're for the terrorists and should promptly die in a fire. It's nice when life is simple!

Of course, life is not simple, unless you're on the Simple Life (in which case life is so simple its borderline retarded). What is curious about the whole debate is you have to look hard to find a Democrat who is anti-surveillance. They are quite happy with surveillance! What they object to is a lack of Congressional oversight, not the bugs themselves. The decisions taken by the current Administration speak volumes as to the mindset of those at the White House. Given the choice between working within existing law or appropriating new powers into the President's hands, they went for the latter course - as they have in most every other situation where the Executive branch has bumped up against the Judicial or Legislative.

The FISA program, oft-derided by the President and his team, provides for a secret court that meets in secret to provide secret warrants for secret surveillance to secretly listen in on foreign elements secret conversations (it is very secret). The main thrust of the debate is not so much listening in on Evil Foreigners - which everyone agrees is important - but that the tools given to the security services are not then turned around and used to spy on citizens of the United States. This topic reminded me of revelations in Britain in the 1980s, where MI:5 (the British Domestic Security Service) was found to have kept secret files on labor leaders, left wing activists, and others deemed a possible Threat To Our Way Of Life. In this country, we need only look back to the Hoover files to see what happens where an Agency is given carte blanche to poke around at their whim. FISA does not offer a great deal of protection in this regard - at least, certainly not public oversight - but it does give Congress a means to determine what is being done in the name of the public, and by whom.

The Adminstration's opionion on FISA and surveillance has changed in the years since 9/11. As an article in the Los Angeles Times reports today, the lawyers working for the White House actually -opposed- lowering the legal standard for intercepting traffic. This is the opposite of what they want today of course, which is lower requirements, using the 'We are at war, just trust me' approach to swaying the argument in their favor. Personally, I am not particularly swayed. Given that the current amorphous war on terror has no determined end whatsoever, the notion that we must shelve all criticism and questioning of our leaders because 'we are at war' swiftly translates to 'do not question those in power, ever, because that is bad for the country'. Not exactly the principles upon which this country was founded.

Congress is debating new limits on spying in general with Democrat and Republican party members expressing unease at the decisions taken, among them Arlen Specter. The debate is gloomily predictable, though it does have some wonderful quotes, among them John Kerry's principled stand that "What [Rove is] trying to pretend is somehow Democrats don't want to eavesdrop appropriately to protect the country. That's a lie," Kerry said. "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer." The growing debate that is diverging lawmakers along party lines isn't so much that surveillance is needed (everyone is pro-bug) but that whether or not the Bush Administration broke the law by brushing aside the FISA requirements with reference to the Congressional resolutions passed shortly after 9/11.

If you were to believe some of the heated rhetoric on this, you might even think that Congress would consider impeaching Bush. Senate Democrats are increasingly dubious about the rationale for bypassing Congressional oversight, deeming it a slap in the face to Congress - which it manifestly is. What confuses me is why this should surprise anyone; Bush certainly has no record of going out of his way to 'appease' anyone, especially when he's convinced he's right in the first place. Impeachment of course is about as likely as Jack Abramoff winning Washington DC Personality of the Year. While it's alright to impeach a President for lying about interns during a war on terror, it's okay to give them a pass when they creatively reinterpret laws, I suppose.

What does the general public make of this? Polls so far have been mixed. The most entertaining one by far was run by the New York Times. I will leave the full analysis to you, gentle reader, but will share with you two findings that made me laugh. Firstly, that

"53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism"; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved."

Proof positive that repeating 'Terrorism' over and over is a perfectly viable way of swaying people. The winner by a landslide though was

"In one striking finding, respondents overwhelmingly supported e-mail and telephone monitoring directed at "Americans that the government is suspicious of;" they overwhelmingly opposed the same kind of surveillance if it was aimed at "ordinary Americans."

Sadly, what differentiates ordinary Americans from suspicious Americans was never fully outlined. But that's okay. You can trust the government to make the decision for you. Right?

Posted by union_jack at 10:01 AM | Comments (4)

New Year, New Lobby

A happy new year to all! I hope your celebrations were safe and happy, and did not involve digging for a diamond earring in heavy snow atop a roof in downtown Portsmouth, as mine did (we found the earring though - perhaps that is a good omen). This year is shaping up to be full of interesting times, in the sense of that ancient chinese saying. Bird flu, a shaky Middle East peace process (not that this is new, really), forecasters saying bigger and badder hurricanes, a new and probably bitter Supreme Court nomination fight, Iraq, and now, on top of it all, lobbyists have been found to be influencing the political process! Quelle surprise.

The right to lobby is one that is enshrined in the Constitution. This might surprise some people who are reading the reports of favors, golfing trips and influence peddling, but then again I'm not sure that the framers really intended the 'right to petition for redress of grievance' to turn into a multimillion dollar old boy's network of the well-heeled, their aides, former Congressmen and Senators and their staffs. Intent or not though, it is the way of things that those who have money will have more access than those who do not - even without lobbyists, money buys you airtime, op/ed columnists, think tanks, and in extreme cases, 24 hour news networks.

Scandal seems to be a cyclical phenomenon in Washington. It is approximately ten years since Newt Gingrich's 'Republican Revolution' swept the House with a call for less corruption, smaller government, and a Contract With America. Very grand and impressive claims of a new start, but after ten years at the trough the likes of Jack Abramoff always seem to return. And why not? The money is excellent, it's indoor work, you get to schmooze with the rich and powerful, and best of all, since you're behind the scenes you get all of the trappings without the accountability - at least, until you get too greedy even for the beltway.

Catching the ear of the powerful and connected has always been part and parcel of politics. What makes things slightly different in this case is the extent to which lobbyists and the GOP leadership were intertwined, to the point that lobbyists were offering highly paid jobs to personal staffers (and family members) of the House leadership, and being -consulted- on proposed legislative changes by Representatives, to boot, rather than the other way around. Corruption of a single official such as Randy Cunningham is easy to pass off as a 'bad apple'. It's much harder to do this when the collusion is in the open and not only is it not prevented - it's almost encouraged as 'the way we do business here'.

As scandals go, this one has the potential to be quite a doozy. Not only has it single-handedly caused Tom Delay to abandon all hopes of recovering his leadership position, it has caused quite a few sleepless nights in the capitol among other representatives (and no doubt, their staffs). The public are not impressed in the least, and it just may be that the newly exposed greed at the top will topple the GOP from power in a manner the Democrats could only wish they could achieve. No doubt they will attempt to make as much hay from this as possible, but it is somewhat ironic that the GOP are the ones who have ultimately damaged their own standing.

Personally, I'm not surprised by it. The old saw that power corrupts holds as true today as it ever had; those who seek power root out corruption, while those who have power seek to maintain it. It's astonishing how things suddenly become palatable once you're the party in charge - things that while in opposition were the grist for the mill of attack politics. Politicians scratching their heads and wondering why the general public thinks 'a pox on both their houses' don't have to look all that far for the reasons. The incestuous relationship between Lobbyists, Politicians, their relatives and staff all combine to form a conflict of interest a mile high - or at least, the length of K Street.

Will this scandal bring down some House members? I'm looking forward to see if it does. In the meantime, the GOP is starting a race for the new House Leader and making earnest sounds about 'cleaning up the lobbying game'. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt is pushing hard for the post, while calling for new limits on lobbying. This is somewhat ironic, given his own son is a lobbyist and he has amassed a political operation to rival anything Tom DeLay amassed; whether the American people will be impressed by the fox earnestly declaring that these chickens are safe with him, is as yet an open question. Whoever wins, it seems likely that the winner will be as enmeshed in the 'new system' as anybody else on the Hill - with its inevitable impact on public trust in government, and those who govern.

Posted by union_jack at 12:54 PM | Comments (4)