The importance of next
Tuesday’s election to the security of each and every American
can be summed up in a single thirty-second spot, called “Wiretap.”
It was written by former Clinton pollster Dick Morris, and is being
aired nationwide by Dave Bossie’s Citizens
United, a conservative
interest group.
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Here is the script.
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Two Arabic-speakers are discussing an imminent terrorist attack, as
an NSA tape-recorder captures their conversation.
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“All is now prepared,” says the first.
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“Is everything in place?
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“It is done. When do we attack?
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“Be prompt. Plant the bomb at—“
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At that point, the screen goes blank, and the narrator delivers the
come-on: “This terrorist wiretap has been disconnected by a
Democrat-controlled Congress.”
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Referring to Democratic party opposition to the President’s
terrorist-surveillance program, the narrator then says: “If the
Democrats win, the NSA won’t be allowed to listen as terrorists
plot attacks.”
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Liberal commentator Alan Colmes, partner with Sean Hannity on the
FoxNews channel, was beside himself with indignation on Oct. 30 when
he grilled Dick Morris on what he called a “dishonest”
bit of negative political advertising.
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The Democrats are not against the Patriot Act, he argued. “Only
parts of it. They are against doing it without a warrant.”
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Thankfully, Morris set Colmes straight. Warrantless wiretapping has
nothing to do with the Patriot Act, but with an NSA program, launched
in utter secret shortly after the September 11 attacks, to “troll
the water front” for potential threats to the United
States.
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When individuals living overseas with known terrorist connections
phone a number in the United States, President Bush ordered the NSA
to listen in – just in case.
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You would think it would be a no-brainer, but it’s not.
Democrats from Nancy Pelosi to Alcee Hastings, the prospective
chairman of the House intelligence committee, have all vowed to put a
stop to the practice, and require the NSA to get a warrant for each
and every phone call or email or other communication they want to
intercept.
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To get those warrants, the NSA will need to go to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance court and prove “probable cause.”
Hard to do, when the subject, as Dick Morris points out, is “the
bridge in the Godzilla movie.”
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How do you go to a judge and say, we think this gentleman in Brooklyn
is potentially conspiring to commit at terrorist act because we heard
him talking about “the bridge in the Godzilla movie”?
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As it turns out, that is a real case. The terrorists were referring
to the Brooklyn bridge. When the NSA figured that out, they phoned
the NYPD, who flooded the bridge with cops.
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“Then they picked up in their intercept it’s too hot to
work on the Brooklyn Bridge,” Morris said. Because of the
intercept, and the quick reaction by the NYPD, the terrorists were
forced to abandon the plot.
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The world of real-time intelligence moves almost as fast as the
electrons that convey messages over phone lines. The problem is not
so much that the FISA court won’t approve terrorist-suspect
wiretaps, but the incredible amount of time it takes to pull together
the application.
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FBI agents just roll their eyes when asked about FISA applications.
They can take weeks, even months to compile. “The last thing
you want is to go the court and have your application turned down,”
one FBI special agent told me.
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The whole process is simply not built for speed or efficiency, as the
National Review’s Byron York pointed
out last year. “It
is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check.”
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Earlier this year, 71 House Democrats joined with independent Bernie
Sanders (now running for U.S. Senate in Vermont) to block the NSA
from continuing to monitor terrorist phone calls.
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Joining with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for
Constitutional rights, they filed an amicus brief in two federal
courts reviewing challenges to the warrantless wiretapping program in
Detroit and New York.
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Both lawsuits demanded that the NSA terrorist surveillance program be
ended, pure and simple. Leading the charge was Michigan Democrat John
Conyers, in line to be the next chairman of the House Judiciary
committee, should the Democrats win a majority of the House next
Tuesday.
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"As our brief makes clear, this Congress dealt with this issue
authoritatively almost 30 years ago - warrantless spying on American
soil is flatly prohibited,” Conyers said.
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Rep. Jane Harman, currently the ranking member of the House
intelligence committee, sponsored legislation along with Conyers and
Hastings earlier this year that would require the NSA to get a
warrant for each and every communication it sought to monitor.
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Called the “Lawful Intelligence and Surveillance of Terrorists
in an Emergency by NSA Act, or the LISTEN Act,
H..R.
5371 could become law
should Democrats win the House.
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"As one who has been briefed on this program, I strongly disagree
with (NSA Director) Gen. Alexander," Rep.
Harman said in July,
when Republican legislation aimed at broadening existence
eavesdropping statutes came before the House. "The numbers (of
targets requiring a warrant) are manageable, and the principle is
non-negotiable."
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The Democrats have decided to run against George W. Bush in every
race across the nation. That puts issues such as the NSA terrorist
surveillance program right on the front burner. The Democrat plan –
such as it is – will gut this and other programs needed to
fight terrorists, capture terrorists, and interrogate terrorists, to
prevent attacks against Americans and on American soil.
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Dick Morris put a clean cap on it all. “This year, vote like
your life depends on it,” the
“Wiretap” ad winds up.
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“Because it does.”
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