The NSA: Spies or Cops?

As recently as this past December, I was trying to make the point on some political boards that there is a difference between the government looking for criminals and looking for intelligence. In some cases, like when the NSA listening in on trans-national phone calls, you can use the same information for both purposes. Some cases, like the current NSA hub-bub, is not the big issue some want it to be. It's just plain SIGINT, which has been going on since WWII and is about as newsworthy as fleas on the presidential dog.

I'll make it clear. I have no problem with the Federal Government collecting all of the "nodes of communication" in the modern world, as LONG as the information is used for counter-terrorism and SIGnals INTelligence. These are valuable activities and I support every dollar spent doing them.. So far as I know, there is no crime that involves calling certain numbers or having certain numbers call my phone. So how are my rights violated?

Is somebody really interested in how many times I called Domino's Pizza last week? Is there some government official sitting in a smoky room somewhere making sure I call my mother on this Mother's Day? Or even better -- is there some sort of government computer program that could check my phone bills for accuracy? Because I can't make heads or tails of them.

I guess you could make some kind of collusion argument -- the information could be used for political purposes, the information could be used as a fishing license for Federal Prosecutors, the information could be released to the media as an attempt to control people.

You can make all sorts of extreme arguments. And I can understand that the system should not be built on "hey. These guys are professionals running these things." We should anticipate that those in power will use their power for ill, whether intentionally or not. So far, I'm with you.

Having said that, this isn't the year 1760 any more. Different departments of our federal government already know more about us than they should. Our health records, our tax records, our juvenile and domestic court records. Heck, there are still confidential FBI and police records all over the place.

The government already knows too much, and I can't see any way of taking that power away from them if you want to live in a country with a national health system, a national justice system, and a national welfare system. If you want big government, and it seems people do, then you got Uncle Sam in your personal life. You can't have it both ways.

So yes, let's get government out of our lives, but that means we dismantle most of it to get to that point. Anybody up for that? Or are we just randomly complaining? Is it okay for the government to know too much when we like the president, just not when his poll numbers are down? Because that doesn't make any sense to me at all. Hey. I want free prescription drugs just don't fight Al Qaeda?

Since it's the modern world, and nobody has a time machine to take us back to when people rode in a horse and buggy to go places, there's no such thing as just making this problem go away. We are, indeed, at war. So the discussion has to be what sort of safeguards do we want for what kinds of information. I don't have any easy answers on this topic. I am still thinking about it. The current NSA phone number story is a no-brainer, however, and seems much more like piling on an administration that is low in the polls than anything that is serious. It's an election year, so expect trumped up stories like this for the next several months. There will be big font headlines, maybe even exclamation points. The use of hyperbole and effusive rhetoric has been authorized.

Probably the stupidest thing I heard on TV today was Senator Arlen Specter. Specter heads the judiciary committee in the Senate. He said he was very perplexed about something. He said something like "How is the Congress supposed to oversee programs when we don't even know they exist?"

Hey Arlen! Get a grip. I could give you a million ways to do it. The first way is the way you are using now. The Intelligence Committee oversees intelligence programs, and they are responsible for all oversight of the intelligence community. That includes those issues normally under you pet Judiciary Committee. After all, it was the Senate who formed the Intelligence Committee in the first place. I know this just isn't Arlen Specter having a little power-play hissy fit, right? I mean, Arlen, you're really interested in the Constitution here, right?

There are plenty more ideas. How about simply making it a Felony to knowingly withhold information about the existence of a federal program from the committees that are responsible for overseeing them? Not the details, just the existence of the programs. How about using your subpoena power to ask administration officials under oath about various programs? Executive privilege might cover advice to the president, but I know you're smart enough to know it doesn't cover the existence of programs that Congress is paying for. One simple question: please list all of the intelligence programs you currently have under way.

The Congress pays for all of this. They are our representatives in Washington. As understood the elected officials I saw today on television, they want to be saved from their own stupidity. I'm afraid nobody can do that.

Of course, we might be able to help them get back to a comfortable life if we let some of them take some time off. After all, we really don't want elected officials for life, do we? Looks to me like they are havintg an awful time of it up there in Washington.