Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

To The Republicans Now Concerned About NSA Surveillance Programs

Tags:

Let us put aside for the moment that not only did most of you not have any qualms about such surveillance during the Bush Administration.  Let us also put aside that during those years you not only lacked any qualms, but also supported it and questioned anyone that disagreed with you over it.  Let us assume, for purposes of argument, that this is genuine concern rooted in privacy issues and not rooted in politics.

President Obama has made clear that members of Congress have been briefed on this issue.  Therefore, if you are truly concerned, and you truly believe that the public had a right to know what was happening, there is a simple solution that was available to you the moment you found out.  What is that solution?

Read everything you know about the surveillance programs into the Congressional Record.

This could be done through an actual speech on the floor of the House or the Senate.  This could be done through a speech in committee.  This could be done by moving to insert the full text of what you have into the Congressional Record.  There are all sorts of ways to do this and with its insertion it would enter the public domain.

Now you’re probably thinking that you could get in serious amounts of trouble, and go to prison for a long time, for what is effectively leaking highly classified information.  You couldn’t be more wrong.  See, that Constitution you claim to hold so dear, and you claim you know pretty much inside and out, protects you pretty much absolutely if you had chosen to go this route.  I direct your attention to Article I, Section 6, Clause 1:

Senators and Representatives…  for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

This is a grant of congressional immunity for your speeches in Congress and your insertions into the Congressional Record.  In fact, this is how Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) helped ensure that the Pentagon Papers would enter the public domain.  A subsequent case held that this protection also extends to congressional aides for conduct for which a representative or senator would be immune from prosecution.

So, there you have it Republicans.  If you were so concerned about this matter, and you truly believed that the public had the right to know, rather than just as part of an attempt to create a scandal, there was a way open for you to raise your concerns and inform the public.  This way was created in the Constitution and is now nearly 226 years old.  Furthermore, it has been used before.  With all the constitutional scholars you claim to have, I’m surprised you never thought of this before.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 26 Comments

26 comments

  1. Mets102

    seems to know no bounds.  Their constitutional ‘scholarship’ also seems to be equally lacking.

  2. HappyinVT

    in a wad in the last month or when in reality Issa and others were briefed last year.

    This is what they wanted and what they got.  Now that it is in the public domain, though, people on both sides of the aisle frankly are up in arms.  WTF did they think was going on since 9/11?

  3. Avilyn

    I didn’t realize this was an option available to the congress-critters (I’m young, so I missed the whole Watergate thing).

  4. janicket

    GOP Congresscritters in the House can’t be bothered with such things; they’re too busy figuring out how to gin up enough hysteria over Snoopinggate, tie it in with IRSgate, APgate, even if possible Benghazigate, and roll out what they’ve hungered for all along — the articles of impeachment.

  5. JanF

    Bob Cesca: NSA Bombshell Story Falling Apart Under Scrutiny; Key Facts Turning Out to Be Inaccurate

    It turns out, the NSA PRISM story isn’t quite the bombshell that everyone said it was. Yes, there continues to be a serious cause for concern when it comes to government spying and overreach with its counter-terrorism efforts. But the reporting from Glenn Greenwald and the Washington Post has been shoddy and misleading. […]

    Canonizing bad reporting as a means of inciting a debate is as bad as no debate at all. Attachment to empirical reality must remain a central trait of the left, otherwise the progressive movement is no better than the non-reality based propagandists on the right who will say and do anything to further the conservative agenda.

    This is why news should be allowed to finish baking. Raw news, like raw food, is not good for your digestion.

  6. JanF

    DNI Calls Reporting On Government Surveillance ‘Reckless’

    A separate “Fact Sheet” put out by [James] Clapper’s office said PRISM is “not an undisclosed collection or data mining program.

    “It is an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government’s statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of FISA.”

    The fact sheet states that under Section 702, the government “does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers” and that no individual can be targeted “unless there is an appropriate, and documented, foreign intelligence purpose”.

    “Finally, the notion that Section 702 activities are not subject to internal and external oversight is similarly incorrect,” it said, adding that collection of intelligence information “is subject to an extensive oversight regime, incorporating reviews by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.”

    From the White House:

    White House spokesman Ben Rhodes says there is not yet an investigation into the leaks that brought the surveillance program to light, NPR’s Ari Shapiro tells our Newscast Desk. But, Shapiro reports, “There is an investigation into whether the disclosure of these programs harms national security.”

    Rhodes says the review intends to “understand what potential damage may be done.”

  7. JanF

    Intelligence for Dummies

    The other side is worried about privacy, but the public is resigned to the idea that some Big Brother is monitoring their communications. After all, we live in a world where you can e-mail your husband about buying new kitchen curtains and then magically receive an online ad from a drapery company.

    She goes on to point out that the NSA is not noted for its care and concern:

    And the N.S.A. has been known to go overboard. During the administration of George W. Bush, it decided to drop a modest in-house plan for data analysis in favor of a gargantuan program called Trailblazer, which funneled more than $1 billion to private consultants and turned out to have the additional liability of not working. The official who fought most vigorously against it was rewarded in 2010 by being charged with violating the Espionage Act when he released information to a reporter.

    That was only one incident, but we do seem to have an ominous combination: an agency with a bad record on thriftiness, and practically everything it spends money on is secret.

    Is there a way to balance “need data to be secure” with real oversight? Good question.

  8. princesspat

    The NSA story and the role of government

    The question here is whether or not that is enough oversight; does the public at large needs to be involved? Answering that question means knowing whether or not providing the public with more information about it would neutralize the effectiveness of the program by broadcasting its workings to the people its targeted to catch.

    I’ll admit that I don’t know the answer to that question. If there is more we can learn without jeopardizing the effort – then we should demand that information. But if opening it up to public scrutiny would pose a problem, then we have to grapple with the question the President posed about the balance between transparency and security.

    As you know, I’ve been writing a lot here about trust. Beyond these questions I’m posing, I think this issue of transparency vs security raises a critical question about the very structure of our government.

  9. Lightbulb

    Something that’s occurred to me is that people with backgrounds in activist spaces are already knowledgeable about government surveillance and have been targets for a long time. Hoover anyone?

    Can’t find the link at the moment, but the ACLU reported on a soup kitchen in NY having it’s phone tapped, which the volunteers had known about for years. In fact, a typed sign on the phone had been up for eons, “This phone is bugged.”

Comments are closed.