The Bush administration’s assault on privacy

George Bush, Jr. is one leader who thinks he’s above the law. That’s the only conclusion to reach in assessing how he is defending his latest breach of civil liberties in the name of the War on Terrorism. I’m referring to his recently exposed domestic spying program. Alberto Gonzalez, the US Attorney General who spends a lot of his time trying to find ways to justify the administration’s reservation of the torture option was on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, attempting to provide legal justification for the warrantless surveillance of ostensibly "terrorist" suspects in the US without special congressional approval.

"Our enemy is listening, and I cannot help but wonder if they aren’t shaking their heads in amazement and smiling at the prospect that we might disclose even more," Gonzalez told Congress. Watching the earnest bureaucrat deliver his boss’s message, I had to smile, too. Firstly, surely al Qaeda knows that any calls they might make to the US could be monitored. Secondly, if they are listening, they are more likely smiling and shaking their heads in amazement at how the Bush administration has been doing a better job in undermining the "Great Satan’s" democratic system of checks and balances than they can possibly do themselves.

It’s quite amazing as well that the Bush administration would flout the law, given that it can wiretap its citizens and foreigners within the US legally, if it wants. Under the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA), Bush can go to a secret court 72 hours in advance of a wiretap operation to get it approved. Journalist Martin Schram, described this protocol as "close to a judicial rubber stamp as a president can conjure up in his fondest power dream." During a 25-year period, from 1979 to 2004, the court approved 18,742 applications and denied only four, Schram pointed out. To justify its spying program, Bush has mounted an aggressive PR campaign that has tried to justify the program and convinceor, as some would sayscare Americans into supporting it. He’s used Orwellian double-speak to spin the program, suggesting its name should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program" as if a simple change of terms would make the program legal and acceptable.

But he has not convinced a neutral observer like the non partisan Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the US Congress. Bush said, "It’s amazing that people say to me, ‘Well, he’s just breaking the law.’ If I wanted to breach the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush’s perceived incredulity aside, he didn’t brief Congress. He briefed just eight senior lawmakers. But that said, the Congressional Research Service report noted that Bush’s action "would appear to be inconsistent with the law, which requires that the congressional intelligence committees be kept fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities."

Those congressional committees should also be informed when the administration makes a major shift in gathering intelligence. The National Security Agency’s job is to spy on communications abroad, not on its citizens in the US. The Bush administration claims to be only spying on possible terrorist suspects, but who is he trying to con? Under the presidential order issued in 2002 authorizing the domestic spying program, NASA has monitored the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of thousands of people inside the US without warrants to track any possible connections to al Qaeda. That’s thousands. My question is: how many of these people have nothing to do with terrorism and the would-be spy catchers know it? The wrong answer, I’m afraid, puts us on the slippery slope to the police state at worse or the paranoid society at best.

The Bush administration has shown that’s its not averse to fishing expeditions when it comes to prying into the lives of Americans. This coming March 13 has been set as the court date to determine if Google, the giant Internet search engine, must comply with US Justice Department’s demand that it be given search information about millions of its users. The Bush administration wants to use the information for its legal battle over online access to adult material, such as pornography online. If Google has to comply, millions of its users’ search questions will be affected. Note that Microsoft and Yahoo have already caved into Uncle Sam’s demand.

Meanwhile, big business, most notably AT&T, has become the Bush administration’s handmaiden in its assault on the privacy of Americans. Without informing its customers, the giant telecommunications company has allowed NSA direct access to its huge databases of telephone and e-mail records, involvingyou guessed itmillions of Americans. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a peoples’ champion and one of America’s great institutions, has sued AT&T, charging that the company has made possible "the biggest fishing expedition ever devised." The ACLU is also one of several US pro-privacy organizations that are suing NSA to stop its secret electronic surveillance program.

And what is the government getting for its assault on constitutional law, besides the making of a police state with a paranoid society? Not much, according to a recent investigative report in the Washington Post last February 5. The newspaper reports that: "Fewer than 10 US citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative source, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interruption of their domestic calls."

According to the polls, most Americans still want their privacy and the right to be left alone by Big George. But since 9/11 our bungling leadership in Washington DC has extended government snooping on a wide range of activities that include telephone calls at both the office and home, e-mails, airline flights, library usage, cell phones, and credit card transactions, for starters, all in the name of a war on terrorism that will, most likely, last for decades.

And all we have to show for it are fewer than ten suspected US citizens annually. Our enemies aren’t smiling, if they are eavesdropping. They are laughing their heads off!

Ron Chepesiuk is a Visiting Professor at Chittagong University and Research Associate with the National Defense College.