Consider the following scenario: American intelligent officers intercept a call from a known Al Qaida operative in Yemen to someone in Belgium. What should they do? I say listen in. Suppose the call includes the words "the next strike." Then the party in Belgium calls someone in Virginia. The Virginia number belongs to a charity that sends money to Palestinians. Then the party in Virginia calls someone in Omaha who is an American citizen but has no record and is subject to no previous suspicion. What should the intelligent officers do then? Wait until a warrant can be secured? I say again, listen in. Maybe a better scheme, more protective of civil liberties, can be devised. But at the moment, be damn sure you know what is being said on those lines.
I made all that up off the top of my head, and it remains to be seen whether the National Security Agency monitoring of telephone conversations and e-mails fits that scenario or not. Those critical of the war on terror are demanding that this be looked into and Congress is about to oblige. Surely there are serious questions about civil liberties and privacy raised by these activities. It certainly seems to me that some scheme could be devised that would include judicial oversight. And if it turns out that the Administration is using its prerogative to monitor domestic critics, without obvious security concerns, that will count as an abuse of power. In that case, the administration is in hot water. Now that the cat is out of the bag, it is up to Congress to get a good look at it. The left should be screaming bloody murder. That's its job.
But that doesn't mean that the left will be rewarded. If the administration has something like the above to justify its domestic surveillance, who is the public going to side with: Democrats, for trying to block such monitoring in the name of privacy rights, or Bush, for trying to prevent another 9/11?
Let me give you a hint: Bush. John McIntyre has a piece in Real Clear Politics laying out the reasons that the current debate over Iraq and national security has shifted in favor of the Republicans.
Democrats still do not grasp that foreign affairs and national security issues are their vulnerabilities, not their strengths. All of the drumbeat about Iraq, spying, and torture that the left thinks is so damaging to the White House are actually positives for the President and Republicans. Apparently, Democrats still have not fully grasped that the public has profound and long-standing concerns about their ability to defend the nation. As long as national security related issues are front page news, the Democrats are operating at a structural political disadvantage.
McIntyre points out, correctly I think, that this has been decisive in the past two elections.
In 2002, Republicans very skillfully were able to paint the Democrats as obstructionists on the Homeland Security bill and used the issue to bash Democrats as soft on the War on Terror. In 2004, perceptions that when it came to defending the nation, the leadership and resolve of President Bush was superior to the Democrat Kerry was always the tailwind at Bush’s back that led him to victory.
Of course, the current spying story may yet unfold in ways that are deeply embarrassing to the administration. But the defense of civil liberties ought not to rest on such accidents. If Democrats really believe that Bush has crossed the line it is not enough to curse him while foaming at the mouth. The voters will surely choose the party that hates Al Qaida more than anyone to the party that hates Bush above all. If they want to defend civil liberties, Democrats must show how terrorism can be defeated, and show some enthusiasm for it.
Lets face a terrible fact. The destruction of the Twin Towers did not really scare most Americans. Disturbing as it was, it was something that happened on TV. A more serious attack would scare us, and once we get really scared we aren't going to care much about procedural due process. We will likely swallow anything that promises to prevent another such disaster. If you want to secure civil liberties, you have to make sure that that next attack never happens. Too bad the Democrats are too busy trying to bring Bush low to think about such things. Consider this, from Powerline:
The debate over domestic surveillance issues turns on balancing our security needs against our need to protect individual rights. If the president is incorrectly analyzing the security side of the equation, Congress should tell him so. If he is analyzing the security side correctly but erring in other respects, Congress should tell him that.
But don't hold your breath. The Democrats aren't much interested in a genuine debate about the difficult trade-offs between security and privacy, and they certainly don't want to go on record one way or the other about the nature of the security threat we face. In truth, the Democrats are mostly interested in taking pot-shots at the president pursuant to whatever attack item the MSM is pushing during a given week.
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