Don't Go Into The Light

Sooner or later the liberals are going to change the ideology of innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent.

Whoopha! Who you callin' cynical?

Let's start with a few basic assumtions on your part:

1. illegal widespead domestic spying with Americans as primary targets

Can you cite this out? Where has the media explicitly or even implicitly said that this was the case? If you cannot not cite it, I'm thinking you've confused reporting with your own assumtions.

2. Make the drug company prove I didn't use it.

The primary difference here is that merely listening in on your calls without probable cause is a violation of your civil rights, especially when your not guilty of anything. So, unless they prosecute you for something, you wouldn't necessarily know you're being snooped on. That's much different than having a medical condition that you can prove.

Not the same thing at all, and you know it.

3. that they lack a victim

No, we don't lack a victim. The victim here is the Consitution. Would you really argue that violations to the Constitution matter only if someone gets hurt?

And that is, ultimately, what the fight is about. Or perhaps more imporantly, when the Administrative Branch decides to implement something which may or may not be in violation of our Constitutional rights, which matters more? Our rights or thier secrecy? In my opinion, I voted, and I get to decide. Not the Bush Administration. The burden of proof in this case rests with the Administration, not with those seeking to protect our rights.

Moreover, speaking of cynical, the White House's defense of this program is bordering on farcical (mmmm. . . fudge farcicals. . ). In what way would revealing the methods used by the NSA wiretapping - even to the general public - actually endanger the program? Do they not suppose that the terrorists already guessed we might be listening?

Certainly, if they are tracking what they say they're tracking (phone call metadata), then there's really not a hell of a lot to the program in the first place. . . unless of course there is more to what they are doing, which once again raises the question of civil rights, and a questioning public is precisely what they want to avoid.

And oh, yeah: the FISA court is bound to secrecy, so if anyone should be able to review it for violations to the Constitution, it should probably be them. But, the Bush Administration has already had five subpeonas flatly rejected, so I have a tick we already know what the outcome of that would be. Is the FISA court now a bastion of liberalism?

Keeping in mind how this whole story broke, perhaps you might like to peruse this article of mine and tell me what you think, perhaps open a whole new topic if you really think you can argue with the conclusions. This was written, by the way, on 2005-12-31 and I have yet to see anything that changes my mind on the subject.

In answer to Old Soldier's comment, "innocent until proven guilty" is a concept applied to our system of justice and means that those prosecuting do not get to assume you are guilty. That means that things like tracking or listening in on phone calls can't happen unless those in law enforcement can show probable cause.

1. The fact is that outside the NSA, the executive branch, and the growing number in Congress that have been fully briefed, nobody really knows exactly what the program entails. What we do know is that the reaction from the left has been uniformly designed to elicit emotional responses from the public.

Democrats in Congress, the ACLU, and the media have indeed mischaracterized the program. From Russ Feingold's website (he's used similar language in speeches):

The President’s illegal wiretapping program is in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA law makes it a crime to wiretap Americans in the United States without a warrant or a court order.

This isn't implying that the calls are international or that suspected terrorists in other countries might be involved - the clear assertion is that the wiretapping is of Americans in America.

Searching Yahoo News for the exact phrase "domestic eavesdropping"(484 hits) or "domestic wiretapping" (295 hits) or "domestic spying" (982 hits) is instructive (and that's just the last thirty days!). The media has continuously mischaracterized the program as well.

The ACLU I shouldn't have to cite. From the article quoted in the above post:

"The issue in this case is simply whether the (NSA) is violating the law and the Constitution in eavesdropping on the telephone calls of Americans without a warrant," said Ann Beeson, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. "… And the government has admitted that the NSA is eavesdropping and not obtaining a warrant."

In each and every case the implication is that the wiretapping is solely domestic in nature - i.e., Americans as primary targets.

I could come up with quotes from Pelosi or Reid but I suspect it's not necessary - they've been quite public with the same type of mischaracterizations.

2. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm sure there's some legal term for it, but if you accuse someone of a criminal act - it's your job to provide evidence to prove it. It's not the job of the accused to prove their innocence if the accusation is unfounded. And unfounded it is if you have no evidence.

3. There's now been a number of folks in Congress who have been fully briefed on the program. Comments from both the left and right have been positive. None who have been briefed have asked for the program to end based on it's legal unpinnings.

Some of those briefed were critical prior to learning the truth about the program. What do you suppose changed their minds?

Claiming that the program has harmed the constitution requires something more than speculation based on the comments of politicians and pundits who know next to nothing about what the program really is or does.

As to harm caused by revealing methods - it could be substantial. It's entirely possible that same or similar technology is used to gather intelligence in other areas (we still gather intel on China, Russia, North Korea, and lots of other countries). Revealing technical and/or operational details may not help Osama much in his cave, but a nation with resources could put the information to good use - against us.

I spent 20 years in the Air Force and worked with classified stuff my whole career. You'd be surprised at the seemingly ordinary things we protected because they could be combined with other ordinary things to make something substantial and potentially devastating. Trust me, what little was made available about the NSA program in the intial media frenzy was way too much.

Gotta break for now - there's a four year old waiting for me to tuck her in.

I'll try to add to this in the morning.

OK, there are two fundamental issues at play here that I want to make clear where we stand on:

1. "Innocent until proven guilty" means that all preference is given to the *individual rights* of a citizen over those *institutional priviledges* of law enforcement. Note that "Rights" are unalienable and granted by virtue of being alive, whereas "Priviledges" are granted by men, to be taken away as necessary. That meaning, if law enforcement cannot provide probable cause to suspect someone of a crime, then they are not allowed to exercise those priviledges which allow them to temporarily violate that individual's civil rights or privacy. If law enforcement does not obey these rules, then all bets are off for law enforcement. They must surrender what they have to assure that they have not done anything illegal. This has many times in the past been the rule, and only the Bush Adminstration sees fit to argue otherwise.

2. Closely associated with the above, there is a substantial difference between an individual charged with a crime and an institution of our government accused of violating the law.

The point is that both you and Old Soldier are using the term and the concept of law completely backwards. The protections of law cover *individuals* not institutions.

And oh, yeah. You never did come up with a quote from a news organization that specifically said that Americans were *targets* of the spying. You only came up with ones that didn't specifically state that *terrorists* are. That's not the same thing.

And oh, yeah. Really looking forward to a discussion some time in the future about gun control, where will doubtless switch sides of the Constitutional argument, to some degree. Good times!

I don't think either I or Old Soldier is trying to apply "innocent until proven guilty" in the way you've taken it - I believe he said "the liberals are going to change" meaning that what's done here will eventually be applied to criminal cases (as Feingold is already attempting to do with his censure resolution).

Nonetheless, this bunch in Detroit is engaged in a civil action, not criminal. Institutions, including our government, are indeed entitled to a modicum of protection by requiring standing. My drug company analogy is valid to show this:

Me: I got sick from the XXX drug!
Judge: Okay, but how do we know you took the drug? And how do we know you're sick? Do you have receipts? Medical records?
Me: No, I don't.

Applying your standard of innocence being afforded to individuals over institutions to the above setting, the judge would have to let it go to trial. But we don't do things that way here. Since in a civil trial standing is required, the judge in my example would toss out my claim. Good thing, too, as we're over litigious in this country as it is. Imagine what a nightmare our court system would be if accusation were given the same weight as actual evidence.

Same applies in favor of the government. The ACLU has no evidence that its clients were listened to - only "fear" that they might have. Sorry, but that ain't enough to force the government to expose classified technical information on a program that even the Democrats who have been briefed agree is targeting terrorists and is effective.

On the media, let's go back to Dec. 16 of last year and view the wellspring:

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

While the above is explicit, I'll concede that much of the reporting since has been implicit in nature. But the point is that when you leave out valuable context for the express purpose of swaying opinion, it's dishonest.

If by "gun control" you mean "use both hands", then we probably already agree.