Salon’s Tim Shorrock posted a pretty interesting story today on a "movement" to investigate the abuses of the Bush Administration – an investigation based largely on the Church Committee. Clearly I’ve linked to some background info on the Church Committee but if you’re disinclined to follow that link, you should know right off the bat that the Church Committee scrutinized the abuses of the Nixon Administration and those before it, the end result being the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Yes. That one.
Beyond the push for an investigation of past conduct, Shorrock also drops a few new bombs and describes a database that may be one of the missing links in the discussion and debate over the president’s warrantless wiretapping program:
Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as "Main Core," the database reportedly collects and stores — without warrants or court orders — the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security.
There are more than a few interesting points in this article but here’s a quick rundown:
- A search engine known as the Prosecutors’ Management Information System (or PROMIS) was the basis for Main Core which uses the Google-like technology sort through insane amounts of data for the NSA and CIA. It’s bigger than we ever thought.
- Shorrock quotes a piece in Radar saying, "8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect." Chew on that, America. A group of you roughly the population of New York City is considered to be a threat to your country.
- Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and David Addington (who I’m increasingly convinced was put on earth to shred the Constitution with his bare hands) were all a part of the Reagan Administration – the administration that saw the birth many of the surveillance projects, tools and initiatives still in use (and more powerful) under the George W. Bush Administration. Coincidence? That’s what we call a "fat chance."
Though it’s unclear how seriously the idea of a new Church Committee is actually being taken up on the Hill, it’s clear that some kind of investigation should happen. No matter what you think of either presidential candidate it’s difficult to put the proverbial genie of wider executive power back in the bottle and both candidates will have a hard time letting go of the constitutional breathing room George W. Bush and his administration have pilfered over the last seven years. (Also, FYI, the House Judiciary Committee is holding an interesting hearing this Friday on Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush. Bring popcorn.)
And, since it just passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 giving increased surveillance power to the executive, it’s unlikely that Congress will be eager to see exactly how big of a mistake it made by learning the details of the warrantless wiretapping program AFTER the fact. The point is maybe Congress should have had the guts to do this two and a half years ago when the New York Times originally revealed the president’s end run around FISA. You have to appreciate the hearty serving of irony when there’s talk of recreating the body that created FISA to protect Americans by the very people who eviscerated that law earlier this month.
This point is best summed up by Shorrock in my most, most favorite part of his piece:
The Democrats’ reticence on such action ultimately may be rooted in congressional complicity with the Bush administration’s intelligence policies. Many of the war on terror programs, including the NSA’s warrantless surveillance and the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," were cleared with key congressional Democrats, including Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Rockefeller, and former House Intelligence chairwoman Jane Harman, among others.
BTW, Salon’s having a hell of a day as Glenn Greenwald has
posted his thoughts on AT&T sponsoring the Democratic Convention in Denver. Shameless, guys. Absolutely shameless. Wouldn’t it be great if those things said, "I Handed the Telecoms Blanket Immunity and All I Got Was This Lousy Tote Bag"?
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Thanks for this post, Amanda. I read the Salon piece at 3:00 this morning and started feeling the same excitement I felt back in the Nixon days, watching the Erwin committee hearings. Then, I remembered that back then it was only one party that had tried to shred the Constitution.
The Core database and subsequent warrantles surveillance that culminated in the FISA amendment couldn’t have happened without the complicity of the leadership of both parties.
Here’s a question for the ACLU: Does the taking of the oath of office have any legal significance, or is it just window dressing?
If I’m called into court to testify, I take an oath to tell the truth, and if I violate that oath, the judge will send me to jail.
Our elected officials take an oath, administered at the highest levels by a justice of the Supreme Court to protect and defend the Constitution. Does violating that oath have any kind of consequences? Or is it just for show, with consequences only on election day, and only if anybody’s paying enough attention to notice?
July 24th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
you can ask the ACLU,s new “Poster Boy”
for whistle blowers the infamous, the one and only Mike German, former FBI agent.
Mr German once thought american militias were joining with muslim to forment trouble in the US . Sounds like a Clancy novel and the inspector general didn’t believe him either. I think big info center refers to these individuals as
” GEE-HAWD-ist”. Go figure!
July 25th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
There is a long history behind this in the post-Nixon era, beginning with the shutdown of the investigations into the CIA by GHW Bush in 1976:
“Bush hoped to persuade congressional leaders that the investigations of the Agency should be curtailed. He made numerous personal visits to Capital Hill, where his low-key personal charm was welcomed. On March 31, 1976 he issued a formal call for reducing congressional oversight… Bush’s lobbying was successful. In large measure, his proposal was adopted: Congress consolidated the oversight process, drastically reducing its own access to CIA secrets… As an extension of the same strategy, Ford gave Bush authority to spread secrecy contracts throughout the executive branch and increased his control over all intelligence budgets. In his capacity as CIA director, Bush was to manage the entire U.S. intelligence community, including a separate staff that administered the National Security Agency…”
Quoted from Secrets: The CIA’s War at Home, Angus Mackenzie 1999
From a review:
“Secrecy operations originated during the Cold War as the CIA instituted programs of domestic surveillance and agent provocateur activities. As antiwar newspapers flourished, the CIA set up an “underground newspaper” desk devoted, as Mackenzie reports, to various counterintelligence activities–from infiltrating organizations to setting up CIA-front student groups… Drawing from government documents and scores of interviews, many of which required intense persistence and investigative guesswork to obtain, and amassing story after story of CIA malfeasance, Mackenzie gives us the best account we have of the government’s present security apparatus. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the inside secrets of government spying, censorship, and the abrogation of First Amendment rights.”
Probably the main new feature is the amount of involvement of private contractors. This creates a strange legal maze, as the rules that apply to private corporations and the rules that apply to federal agencies often differ - and they’re trying to merge the two together - the state and private industry. Looking at it that way, the “homeland security complex” is the closest thing to fascism that currently exists in the U.S. today.