All of a sudden today there is furious activity on the right seeking to garner support for Bush’s policy of authorizing warrantless wiretaps (otherwise known as “I’ll defend the Constitution unless it conflicts with whatever the hell I want to do” policy). First up to the plate: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Vice President Dick Cheney offered a robust defense of the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program Thursday, calling it an essential tool in monitoring the activities of al-Qaida and associated terrorist organizations. But he stressed the program was limited in scope and had been conducted in a way that safeguarded civil liberties.
In a luncheon speech at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative public policy think tank, Cheney warned that the United States still faced significant threats from a network of terrorists intent on establishing a radical Islamic empire throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East. […]
“A spirit of debate is now underway, and our message to the American people is clear and straightforward: These actions are within the president’s authority and responsibility under the constitution and laws, and these actions are vital to our security,” Cheney said.
I’ve highlighted the phrase “vital to our security” because I suspect that is going to be a frequent Republican talking point over the next few days as the various and sundry Bush apologists on the right make the rounds of Fox, MsNBC and CNN to push the meme that not only is it legal, it’s “vital to our security.”
But the good veep was hardly the only one standing up for the President’s authority to tap your phones, and internet connections. Here’s the eponymous Max Boot in the LA Times discounting fears over the President’s “surveillance program”:
. . . [A]lthough the government has occasionally blundered, it has also used its enhanced post-9/11 powers to keep us safe. The National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps, which have generated so much controversy, helped catch, among others, a naturalized American citizen named Iyman Faris who pleaded guilty to being part of an Al Qaeda plot to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge.
No wonder polls show that most people continue to support Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism. As long as federal surveillance remains targeted on the country’s enemies, not on the president’s, the public will continue to yawn at hyperbolic criticisms of the commander in chief.
Shorter Max: You can sleep tight tonight now that Daddy Bush has your back, and all your personal information too. It’s better to be safe than free anyway.
And lest we forget the coming battle over the renewal of the Patriot Act, well here’s Representative Mike Turner (R-OH) to remind us how vital it is to our security:
Patriot Act renewal vital to security
Rep. Mike Turner
. . . The Patriot Act has played a key role in a number of successful operations to protect innocent Americans from terrorists.
There should be no safe zone, no sanctuary, for terrorists in America. This fight is way too important. The Patriot Act helps ensure that terrorists have no safe zone.
Yes, I remember the tremendous value of the Patriot Act in allowing the feds to secretly monitor anti-war groups. And of allowing the FBI to go through the file of books checked out at your local library. I’m sure we are all safer as the result of such offcially sanctioned intimidation.
Of course, the ultimate in message manipulation comes to us courtesy of Attorney General Gonzales and his busy beavers at the Justice Department as they present the brief for defending the indefensible:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department, facing lawsuits and congressional hearings on President George W. Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program, sought on Thursday to persuade congressional leaders the surveillance was lawful and did not violate civil liberties.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who plans to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on February 6, sent a report to Capitol Hill outlining the legal basis for the National Security Agency’s activities that Bush approved after the September 11 attacks. […]
“These NSA activities are lawful in all respects,” Gonzalez said in a letter to Senate leaders in releasing the Justice Department’s 42-page legal analysis.
“They represent a vital effort by the president to ensure that we have in place an early warning system to detect and prevent another catastrophic terrorist attack on America,” he said.
There’s that word “vital” popping up again. Big surprise, eh?
And big surprise “Abu” Gonzales sees nothing illegal in wiretapping his fellow American citizens without a warrant. This is, after all, the man who also defended Bush’s program of idefinitely detaining American citizens so long as the President can designate them “enemy combatants” (Jose Padilla anyone?) as well as why what we’re doing at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharaib and God knows where else (Poland? Uzbekistan?) isn’t really torture, despite all those poor sods who just happened to die while in our custody.
In any event, the Right’s full court press is on: Be afraid, be very afraid! That’s a Presidential directive.