Reid Calls For Investigation Into Domestic NSA Surveillance

Predictable…

AP - Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called Sunday for congressional hearings and investigations into President Bush's authorization of domestic spying as part of the war on terror.

"This Congress has done very little oversight," Reid, D-Nev., said on "Fox News Sunday." "There should be an investigation and hearings."

Reid acknowledged that he was briefed by the administration about the surveillance program "a couple of months ago." But he said the program apparently has been going on for four years and "there's no way the president can pass the buck."

If Reid felt so strongly about this, why didn't he speak up "a couple of months ago?" Could it be that he postponed his outrage over this "controversy" until the release of this story by the media? Which in turn was timed to coincide with the enourmously succesful elections in Iraq thus ensuring that good news was quickly wiped out of the headlines by this story and the subsequent delayed outrage from Reid and his cohorts on the left?

Maybe Senator Reid would like to address the fact that the law giving the President these powers of surveillance was passed back in 1978 by a Democrat controllled Congress and signed into law by none other than Jimmy Carter himself? Or maybe he'd like to react to the fact that every year, beginning in 1979, a report has been made to Congress about the use of the powers in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? No fewer than five of these reports have been filed with Congress since President Bush took office. Are we really to believe that the first time Harry Reid has heard of all this is just "a couple of months ago?"

Either Harry Reid is woefully lacking in his Congressional responsibilities or he's just not being 100% honest with us on this issue.

According to FISA, the President is allowed to authorize warrantless monitoring of communication during a time of war as long as that communication does not involve American citizens and that the communcation takes place between "foreign powers" or their agents as defined in § 1801 sections (a) 1, 2 and 3 of the law.

The only quibble I can see in the legality of this espionage is that international terrorists may not meet the definition for "foreign powers" as defined in the link above. But in the modern era of international terrorism I'm not sure that a strict reading of those definitions is warranted. According to definition 3 a foreign power is "an entity that is openly acknowledged by a foreign government or governments to be directed and controlled by such foreign government or governments." This could be applied to several international terror organizations present in our world today.

Hezbollah, for instance, is openly recognized by Iran and Syria and sponsored by both of those governments. Al Qaeda itself has claimed to govern certain nations/territories in the past and has certainly recieved assistance and sanction from foreign powers.

But without knowing specifically who was the target of this espionage it is impossible to say if that person falls outside the permissable definitions for warantless monitoring. One encouraging thing is that the Bush administration has apparently gone through great pains to keep the proper authorities in Congress and the judicial system aware of their use of FISA. There is little doubt in my mind that the administration would have been less forthcoming with this information had they been doing something explicitly underhanded.

There is a lot of vicious rhetoric and finger-pointing going on over this already, but I think we all need to keep a level head and consider the facts before slinging any mud. If it is true that the President authorized surveillance on communications involving U.S. citizens then he is guilty of breaking the law and should be held accountable. Also, if it comes to light that the people who were the targets for this surveillance don't meet the definitions provided for permissable targets in the law then the Bush administration is guilty of breaking the law and should be held accountable.

Until more information come out I don't think there are many conclusions that can be drawn. Personally, even as the media and the political left rush to lynch President Bush over this before all the facts come to light, I'm going to assume that they are innocent of wrong doing until sufficient evidence exists to presume they are guilty.

You can read more from Rob Port at SayAnythingBlog.com