Will the spies come out of the closet?

Published in The Huffington Post, 2/14/08

The president must be happier than a pig in slop tonight. Since he and I are both originally from Texas, I assume I can use that colloquialism. Yesterday the Senate voted to broaden the governments spy powers and legally protect the communications companies that help the Bush administration's warrantless spying. There is no doubt the American public is walking zombie-like deeper into post 9/11 disaster. Giving up rights is always easy, getting them back never is. With all the lies this administration has told the American people, how in the world can we give up our basic right to privacy?

There is no warrant needed, no judge involved, just hundreds of warehouses manned by people hired by the United States government to monitor every e-mail and every phone call they want to. AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Cingular, Verizon and South Bell are apparently all involved. Sprint was fighting MCI over the government contract to run the hundreds of surveillance warehouses across the country. No doubt the bills are piling up, and it 'aint chump change American taxpayers will have to pay.

The bill allows the government to eavesdrop on large bundles of "foreign-based" communications. With just about every service call I make outsourced to other countries, I like every other American, have foreign communications at least once a week. Will that make us all targets? If Americans had not been victims of political prevarications before, perhaps I could believe the administration. In the words of our president, "Fool me once shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Imagine the political ammo the Bush administration must also be collecting? Which Democrats are calling "phone sex from fat girls" or setting up a meeting in the boy's room to make hay while the sun shines. The voices of outspoken critics of the administration keep disappearing. Do we really believe the Bush administration will have access to information that could possibly destroy its homeland enemies and not use it? (Without congressional approval, of course.) If character is reflected in how one behaves behind closed doors, then the mind reels considering this administration's propensity for playing dirty. Have we forgotten Valerie Plame already?

If the House goes along with the Senate and agrees to augment the government's already out of control surveillance powers, AT&T, Verizon and other communication companies won't have to be worried about lawsuits resulting from eavesdropping without warrants. These new broadened spy powers will give legal protection to those communication companies acting illegally in the name of "patriotism" -- a word every tyrant throughout history has used to explain away culpability.

As far as anyone knows, Qwest is the only company with the good sense to say no. Let's hear it for them! A corporation in Qwest of good judgment. I'll bet the Bush administration makes sure Qwest suffers for its constitutional cognition.

Meantime, as a reporter there's another issue that particularly worries me. I know of at least one mega-media-corporation that is a mass-communication giant as well. So, let me see if this equation is as problematic as it seems -- a mass communication company putting out news while spying for the government at the same time. Holy Toledo -- we are certainly not in Kansas anymore, but the government certainly is. Osama must be smiling at his dialysis machine about now.

I was reporting in Moscow during the cold war and remember looking up over the bathtub to see a camera lens pointing down at me. The KGB followed our crew where ever we went. It was un-nerving being watched and followed in a country where no one trusted anybody. When I arrived back in America I kissed the ground, and called my family. A phone call that most likely would be monitored today.

Comments

[Marcia]

We've let our rights erode and our country to go hell in a handbasket. Our elected representatives seem to be sleepwalking as is the American public. Few have the energy to protest anymore. Are we too afraid? Reflecting on those in the USSR who did not protest and lived in fear, have we become them?

[walter hansell]

Leslie,

This is an important and ongoing story which does not get the sustained public and media attention it deserves. How close are we coming to Americans having to worry about what we say, what we think, the knock on the door late at night, secret trials, people who disappear? Government abuse of power is as old as government, and our Constitution was wisely written by people who understood how it happens. Nothing justifies breaches of constitutional rights. Freedom is being eroded little by little, imperceptibly to most people. If abuses only happen to "others", and no one speaks up, then we are letting the thugs take over, and when it happens to "us" we will be naked, helpless and alone. Please keep up the good work on this menace to society.

[Bill in Virginia]

Thanks, Leslie

Yesterday, Keith Olbermann had a scathing commentary on FISA fear mongering, Bush lying himself into a corner, and the 'f' word (no, not that - fascism). Yesterday was an interesting day - House Dems finally stood against retro immunity for telecoms and Republicans walked out of the overdue vote to hold Josh Bolten & Harriet Miers in contempt. Happy Valentines Day!

[Sylvia Paull]

What a great post, Leslie! Where is the ACLU when we need them? You bring a perspective (and wit) to an issue that's turning our democracy closer to totalitarianism.