The distinction between the New York Times editorial on FISA and the Washington Post’s is stark and telling. The Times wants Congress to keep warrants for surveillance and they do not advocate giving the telecommunications corporations retroactive immunity without disclosure of their activities. But even the New York Times is letting us down. This isn’t particularly strong language:
It may be possible to shield these companies from liability, since the government lied to them about the legality of its requests. But the law should allow suits aimed at forcing disclosure of Mr. Bush’s actions. It should also require a full accounting to Congress of all surveillance conducted since 9/11. And it should have an expiration date, which the White House does not want.
I’d like to know what the administration told these companies about the legality of warrantless surveillance. But the bigger problem is that the Times says this:
After 9/11, the Patriot Act made it even easier to conduct surveillance, especially in hot pursuit of terrorists.
But that was not good enough for the Bush team, which was determined to use the nation’s tragedy to grab ever more power for its vision of an imperial presidency. Mr. Bush ignored the FISA law and ordered the National Security Agency to intercept phone calls and e-mail between people abroad and people in the United States without a warrant, as long as “the target” was not in this country.
Actually, as the Washington Post reported yesterday, Bush ignored the FISA law and ordered the NSA to intercept domestic calls before 9/11 and before the Patriot Act. This is a KEY DISTINCTION because it undercuts the whole narrative we have been told since the day the New York Times reported, a year late, that the NSA was doing warrantless domestic surveillance. But the New York Times editorial board keeps hammering the old story line (and not only in the above quote):
…what Mr. Bush really wants is to avoid lawsuits that could uncover the extent of the illegal spying he authorized after 9/11.
Actually, he authorized it before 9/11.
…the law should allow suits aimed at forcing disclosure of Mr. Bush’s actions. It should also require a full accounting to Congress of all surveillance conducted since 9/11.
No. It should require a full accounting to Congress of all surveillance conducted since January 20, 2001.
Ever since 9/11, we have watched Republican lawmakers help Mr. Bush shred the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism.
No. Ever since, at latest, Feb. 27, 2001, we have watched the Mr. Bush shred the Constitution.
Get it right. Just goddamn get it right.
