Reliable BS

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
-"The Solution," Bertolt Brecht, 1953

Remember — the problem is not that the Bush administration is breaking the law and concealing it or lying about it. The real problem is that you know about it. And that, friends, means it’s time to play that beloved conservative game: Blame the Fourth Estate!

The Raw Story has the video up of a segment from Howard Kurtz’ CNN show Reliable Sources. In it, New York Times columnist Frank Rich must defend against the by now familiar BS line that the press are traitors for revealing yet another secret, illegal government program (this one deals with global banking — I know, it’s hard to keep track any more). Three papers initially covered the story, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal (no link because subscription is required). Guess which newspaper earned conservatives’ ire and which paper received no comment?

Rich is first subjected to Dick Cheney’s charges that revealing the program is irresponsible and hurts the war on terror. In the next clip, Peter King (R-NY) does Cheney one better by insisting that criminal charges be filed against reporters. Finally, Rich must fend off former White House speech writer David Frum, who denouces the dissemination of this information as treason most foul, and who divines the machinations of The New York Times in all three newspaper accounts based on the “grammar” of the story. Never let the realities of media competition interfere with a good liberal conspiracy theory! Rich does a fine job of laughing in Frum’s face in a mostly civil manner.

A shorter statement from these conservative press critics could just as well be: “I’m disappointed that this truth-telling may become a trend.”

Really, I think the American people would be more forgiving about the Bush administration's unprecedented law-breaking if they were just more, well, competent. At this point, Bush’s approval rating hovers around 30%, down to his base, the “yellow dogs,” so to speak. These are the people who a) think he’s competent or b) think the Democrats would do an even worse job or c) are sticking with Bush out of stubborn loyalty or d) hate the Democrats so much anything they oppose must be good.

The Washington Post’s account of the story contains a choice quotation:

"We are disappointed that once again the New York Times has chosen to expose a classified program that is working to protect Americans," spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We know that al-Qaeda watches for any clue as to how we are fighting the war on terrorism and then they adapt, which increases the challenge to our intelligence and law enforcement.”

"
Yeah, well, Dana, some of us are pretty damn disappointed "once again" in this administration. I know you’re a paid flack, but anyone who thinks that terrorists aren’t aware they may be monitored or recorded is a complete idiot. Mobsters have been using surveillance-foiling tactics for decades. Hasn't the White House crew seen Casino? Or is it only Rambo, based on their disastrous foreign policy? Maybe if your team could, y’know, follow the law and uphold the Constitution - oh, not to mention, tell the truth without being forced to at gunpoint - you’d have a little more credibility when you complain about the press. (Apparently, the Bush administration chose to brief lawmakers on this latest disclosed program only after the newspapers said they would run the story, all for the purpose of the White House minimizing damage and being able to claim, "they were briefed!")

And let's not forget about Cheney, as transcribed from the video:

What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some in the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people. That offends me.

Considering Cheney’s batting average is almost nil, and he’s a well-established liar, if he’s genuinely offended (or even if it's the usual manufactured outrage), it probably means you’re doing something right. What I find most "disturbing" about Dick Cheney is that he’s taken it upon himself to bypass the legislature and the judiciary and push for a series of dangerous, harmful and illegal actions, from warrantless eavesdropping to torture, thus making it more difficult for America to retain its previously positive image abroad, not to mention the problems caused by a direct and sustained assault upon the Constitution and the core values of America itself. That offends me.

And sorry, no, you don’t get to lie repeatedly to the American people and to Congress and keep on telling the same discredited story about Atta in the Czech Republic even after DCI Tenet has told you to stop doing that because they know it’s false and the Czechs say so, too... (whoops, sorry the list can go on for so very long...) You don’t get to lie repeatedly, perform horribly, break the law and then complain about other people when they tell the truth. There’s a reason that Cheney’s approval rating is regularly below 20%, and it says something that not even all the diehards will stick up for Cheney.

Ask not how your government can better serve you. Ask how you can better assist the government in curtailing your civil liberties.

There's a saying that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. However, knaves and scalliwags vilifying those who tell the truth about them is a pretty reliable occurence as well. The only question is what flavor the BS will come in this time, and from whom.

Perhaps if Cheney is unhappy with the people, he can dissolve them and elect another. Personally, I’m hoping a step in the other direction shall occur this November.

Reporters' Phones Tapped?

I doubt there's any major reporter that didn't wonder about his or her phone being tapped when news broke of the NSA call-tracking program. Today, there's evidence that even if reporter's phones are not being tapped, their phone records are being scrutinized. Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo links a story posted by ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

How worried should they be? Well:

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with The New York Times and The Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Does this impulse originate from the CIA or the White House, and are they in accord? Because Porter Goss, a partisan Bush political appointee, has until very recently been running the CIA, it's highly unlikely this activity would proceed without Bush's implicit approval and may be the result of an explicit order from his administration.

Ross reports ABC is under scrutiny because of their reporting on CIA secret prisons and the CIA use of predator missiles in Pakistan. At The New York Times, the targets would undoubtedly include James Risen and Eric Lichtblau for their Pulitzer-winning work revealing another illegal NSA program of domestic surveillance. At The Washington Post, one of the targets would have to be Dana Priest, who also just won a Pulitzer, for her excellent reporting about CIA black op prisons located in foreign countries and the practice of "extraordinary rendition."

In Dana Priest's weekly online chat on 5/11/06, one interchange made the rounds in the blogosphere:

Rockville, Md.: Isn't it possible that the massive database of phone records could also be used to expose whistleblowers, reporters onto stories damaging to the Bush administration, and/or political opponents of the current administration?

Dana Priest: hmmm. sure hope we can answer that for you, and for me, by the end of the day.

Two other interchanges received less play on the web but are also essential:

Anonymous: Dana - How does the NSA data "drift net" that was exposed today differ from the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program led by Poindexter that was supposedly disbanded? Did the Pentagon just continue the program under a different name?

Dana Priest: That's a possibility. We don't know yet.
_________________
Washington, D.C.: In response to anonymous and TIA, this from Feb 2006--The National Journal reports that the Pentagon transferred two of the most important TIA components of TIA to Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), located at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. One piece was the Information Awareness Prototype System. It helped extract, analyze and disseminate data collected under the project. Once the Senate cut off funding, ARDA stepped forward to fund the program and it was given a new name "Basketball." All references to TIA were dropped

Dana Priest: thank you. passing on...

The National Journal article can be read here. William Arkin has previously reported on his Washington Post blog Early Warning similar news. When the Pentagon was criticized for performing surveillance on Quakers, vegetarians, lesbians and peace groups (NBC's account here and Arkin's account here), and illegally retained records they were required to destroy, essentially they merely moved the program to escape further scrutiny.

So are Dana Priest's phone records being scrutinized, along with other recent Pulitzer winners at The Times? Considering the track record and mentality of the Bush administration, I'd frankly be shocked if they hadn't at least inquired about such an action. If they already possessed the records, provided by the NSA call-tracking program, and they wanted to track down the government officials who leaked information that made them look bad, what would restrain them? Unless there was serious internal dissent, I can't imagine them holding back… After all, in the Plame affair, Bush has not launched his own investigation, fired people, acknowledged a problem and pledged to do things differently (in fact, he authorized Libby to leak classified information while publicly decrying leaking!). Similarly, with their secret torture policy, the Bush administration faced serious opposition in private from career officials of integrity such as Alberto J. Mora but merely did an end-run around them. The same pattern has played out again and again: we can do anything we want to do, we will not be forthcoming, and we will only reveal information or act in an honorable fashion when outmaneuvered and forced to do so.

The exact extent of any activity against reporters is of course unclear, but the Bush administration doesn't need much information to work with, and who the hell trusts these guys? As Ross reports:

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.

The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.

A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.

Who watches the watchmen? And who are the watchmen? On Friday, 5/14/06, The New York Times' Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau reported that after 9/11 Vice President Dick Cheney and key aide David Addington pushed the NSA to conduct warrantless wiretaps, according to "two senior intelligence officials":

If people suspected of links to Al Qaeda made calls inside the United States, the vice president and Mr. Addington thought eavesdropping without warrants "could be done and should be done," one of them said.

He added: "That's not what the N.S.A. lawyers think."

The other official said there was "a very healthy debate" over the issue. The vice president's staff was "pushing and pushing, and it was up to the N.S.A. lawyers to draw a line and say absolutely not."

Healthy debate? Riiiiight. When in the history of the Office of the Vice Presidency has Dick Cheney and his staff ever backed off? From the Iraq war, to torture policy, to energy policy, to taxes, to transparency, to unilateral executive power, the occasions Cheney has not gotten his way are few, if any exist. The fact that a program he wanted currently exists suggests that the usual pattern of Cheney prevailing continued.

As to these latest revelations about reporters under scrutiny, Josh Marshall cogently observes:

I think part of the issue for many people on the administration's various forms of surveillance is not just that some of [their] activities seem to be illegal or unconstitutional on their face. I think many people are probably willing to be open-minded, for better or worse, on pushing the constitutional envelope. But given the people in charge of the executive branch today, you just can't have any confidence that these tools will be restricted to targeting terrorists. Start grabbing up phone records to data-mine for terrorists and then the tools are just too tempting for your leak investigations. Once you do that, why not just keep an eye on your critics too? After all, they're the ones most likely to get the leaks, right? So, same difference. The folks around the president don't recognize any real distinctions among those they consider enemies. So we'd be foolish to think they wouldn't bring these tools to bear on all of them. Once you set aside the law as your guide for action and view the president's will as a source of legitimacy in itself, then everything becomes possible and justifiable.

Power without checks and balances, without oversight, almost always leads to abuse. As with most issues with the Bush administration, this really comes down to, do you trust these guys? If Bush's current job approval ratings are any indication, over 70% of the country says no (Bush's personal ratings have plummeted as well). Given that this administration has never restrained its own power through governmental oversight or simple moral conscience, why would anyone believe they would voluntarily start doing so now?