Bush and others have claimed that this is lawful, necessary, and that great harm was done with the leaking of the program's existence. Lawful is for the courts and the Congress to decide; necessity is between God and Bush, I guess. But I have to take issue with the last point. I haven't seen a fair and direct answer to this question: if the program was lawful, as is alleged, and doesn't go further than the FISA court would've allowed, as is alleged, how was harm done by revealing its existence?
Anybody actively and knowingly doing business with terrorists internationally should expect their conversations will be heard by intelligence agencies, and FISA allows for secret wiretaps of domestic calls. US-to-US calls, US-to-int'l calls, and int'l-to-US calls. These are the exact same calls, excepting the first group (again, allegedly), that it's said are being tapped, but without a court order. So what harm was done by revealing the program's existence?
FISA allows for retroactive court orders up to 72 hours after the tapping has begun. I don't know how much longer Bush might've needed but in my eyes this is a wholly unsuitable way of doing it. Attorney General Gonzalez said that they considered going to Congress to ask for the power, but felt they wouldn't get it. Here's an analogy: a child wants to have some cookies but is confident a request will be denied. So, instead, he just dips his hand in the cookie jar. When caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he explains to his father in this legalistic manner that because he wasn't explicitly told "no" it was an implicit approval. What would motivate a child to take such an action? The desire for something, but a cowardice to ask for it--as if after his explanation, his father would simply shrug, realize that his hands were tied by such a masterful defense, and allow his child to gorge himself on cookies.
I'll end with this:
This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.
No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country.
-- Rep. Tom DeLay, quoted in the Washington Post, Oct. 9, 1998
