WASHINGTON, D.C. — A disastrous terrorist attack on the internet is imminent, and the only way to prevent it is to strip American citizens of their Fourth Amendment rights. In a nutshell, that’s the argument from the Bush administration as presented by National Director of Intelligence Mike McConnell, who reportedly is drafting new federal legislation that would supersede the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with something even more destructive of Americans’ freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.According to a column penned by media ethicist and critic Elliot Cohen PhD and published January 28th at AlterNet, the legislation is a response to Congress’ continuing dithering about FISA reform. FISA — which allows, under the supervision of a secret court, certain extreme types of surveillance of suspected terrorists — has been under attempted revision by the Bush administration and conservative Republicans in the wake of an enormous scandal that erupted last year. According to court documents, published reports and proposed federal legislation, the administration would like to make retroactively legal the complicity of major telecommunications companies with the National Security Agency’s policy of covertly intercepting and poring over the voice-over-internet-protocol communications, email, file-transfer, Web searches and surfing habits of millions of everyday Americans. Several large telecoms, including AT&T, have been sued by more than 40 groups of citizens who are angry about the invasion of their privacy and demand an immediate halt to a practice most constitutional scholars say is illegal.
The government maintains the cyber-spying, which has occurred at least since September 11, 2001, and possibly began before then, is necessary to prevent another massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Unable to have the citizenry’s lawsuits dismissed by the courts on “national security” grounds, Vice President Dick Cheney drafted a FISA-reform bill that would grant retroactive immunity to any entity involved in the covert efforts while requiring at least minimal oversight of future surveillance by FISA’s secret court. The bill has stalled in the House and Senate, due in large part to a groundswell of grassroots outrage and a vow from President Bush to veto any legislation that does not grant immunity. Until Congress can agree on FISA reform or the public controversy dies down, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), has asked legislators to extend the Protect America Act, a piece of interim FISA-reform legislation that is due to expire in February.
Supported by a Washington, D.C.-based neo-conservative think tank known as the Project for the New American Century, Cheney continues to urge Congress to pass his version of FISA reform now. The Project for the New American Century seeks to establish the U.S. as the world’s supreme superpower, in part by not only securing the internet, but also by controlling it (militarily, if necessary) and using it offensively. Combine that with Bush’s demonstrated willingness to retro-date legislation favorable to him and those who support him — he signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which retroactively to November 26th, 1997, gave him the authority to decide what constitutes torture regardless the guidelines established by the Geneva Conventions — and the telecoms very well may get off scot free.
The rumored McConnell bill is expected to emerge from the shadows in February and obviate the need for FISA reform. Reportedly, the proposal would unequivocally allow warrant-less cyber-spying.
“My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens,” McConnell has been quoted as saying.
It’s all so very Orwellian
“Whatever the final disposition of FISA in the coming weeks or months, the administration is now bracing to take a much more aggressive posture that would seek abridgement of civil liberties in its usual fashion: by fear-mongering and warnings that our homeland will be attacked by terrorists (this time of the menacing hacker variety) unless we the people surrender our Fourth Amendment right to privacy and give government the authority to inspect even our most personal and intimate messages,” Cohen wrote in his AlterNet column.
“It would be a mistake to underestimate the resolve of the Bush administration,” he continued. “But it would be a bigger mistake for Americans not to stand united against this familiar pattern of government scare tactics and manipulation. There are grave dangers to the survival of democracy posed by allowing any present or future government unfettered access to all of our private electronic communications. These dangers must be carefully weighed against the dubious and unproven benefits that granting such an awesome power to government might have on fending off cyber-attacks.”
