The ACLU held a town hall meeting last night called Spying, Secrecy and Presidential Power. The panelist for the meeting were John W. Dean, former White House Counsel; Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal Director; James Bamford, spying expert and ACLU v. NSA plaintiff; Nazih Hassan, CAIR-MI, ACLU v. NSA plaintiff. I’ve never been to an online town hall meeting before and this one seemed like it would be very interesting and informative.
That first paragraph was written before I “attended” the town hall meeting. It was very intersting and informative.
The first speaker was James Bamford. James Bamford is an investigative reporter. He’s written two books on the National Security Agency; The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets. He’s very knowledgeable about the NSA and has defended the NSA in the past against charges that it was spying on a foreign company for an American firm.
Bamford gave a brief outline of the history of the NSA. It was started in the 1920s in New York City. At that time it was called The Black Chamber. When it started it had the telegraph/telegram companies sending them all the telegraphs/telegrams sent in the United States. In the 1960s, when this information was kept on computer tapes, they would “borrow” the telegraph companies tapes every night and duplicate them. The originals were returned before the start of business the next day.
All of this was done without a warrant and without authorization.
At one point, Nixon authorized the NSA to py domestically (the Houston Plan), but J. Edgar Hoover got Nixon to revoke the authorization. The NSA, however, did not shut down their operations.
In 1975 FISA was created. Since then the FISA courts have 19,000 requests for security warrants. They have turned down only 5. That is not the final say, however. If FISA turns down the request it can go to the FISA Court of Review (basically a appeal court). One of the 5 requests turned down has gone there. If that request is still turned down it can go the the Supreme Court as a secret appeal. To this date, no requests have gone to the Supreme Court.
The second speaker was Ann Beeson. Ann Beeson filed the first lawsuit to challange the administrations spying without warrants. She stated that until last fall, the ACLU’s efforts had been focused on fighting expanded Executive Powers due to the Patriot Act and spying of the FBI on religious and civil groups. It was not until the fall that they learned of the warrantless wiretapping.
She also stated that it was very easy for the administration to gain warrants under the FISA law. Not only is it easy, the government can do a wire taps for 72 hours without before they have to abtain a warrant under FISA law.
Beeson stated that the governments wiretapping Is effecting journalists and attorneys. They can no longer do their jobs due to wire tapping. Journalists can’t get in touch with their sources and attorneys can’t call potential witnesses overseas due to concerns regarding wiretapping. Consultants and lawyers for pro-democracy groups in countries like Saudi Arabia can’t communicate with those groups due to concerns for the safety of members of those groups.
The next speaker was Nazih Hassan. Nazih Hassan is a member of The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan (CAIR-MI). He has lived in this country for 15 years and came here from Lebenon. He is one of the plantiff’s in the ACLU’s case.
Hassan said that there was no trust among Arabs for current the administration due to the administration’s targeting Arabs and Muslims. He also stated that about 80% of Arab/Muslim organizations have shut down on Executive Order. He knows several Arab/Muslims that have been deported.
While he lived in Lebenon, Hassan said that he heard all the arguments about giving up rights to protect against evil from the Lebenon government that you hear today from the Bush administration. The only except is that this administration is saying that there will only be one group effected, terrorists, but it is not true.
Hassan stated that he had a friend being targeted that had lived in this country for over 12 years. He is married to American woman. His children are American. He has a green card. Now, however, the government is saying that his green card was
inappropriately signed 10 years ago. His crime? He knew Rabih Hadid. Rabih Hadid was the first person that the government tried to deport in closed hearings. The government lost the fight to keep the hearings closed to the public but did deport Hadid.
Hassan said
I hope we are not at tipping point where we go from democracy to dictatorship. If we reach the point where
everything can be justified due to fear, will have dictatorship.
The last person to speak was John Dean. Dean was Nixon’s White House lawyer for 1000 days prior to and during the beginnings of the Deep Throat era. He has written Worse than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience which will be released in July.
Dean stated that he often hears people say they aren’t worried about NSA wiretapping because they aren’t doing anything to
be worried about. He said that people don’t realize how easily their liberties can be taken away.
Dean also said that as a former Nixon counsel he could confidantly say that that claiming state secrets is often “baloney.” To prove his point he explained that the issue regarding state secrets came up during the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Nixon wasn’t worried at first but Kissinger was and told Nixon he had to stop the leaks to effectively deal with the North Vietnamesse and China. He also told Nixon that if he didn’t deal with the leak (Elsberg) it would basically effect his manhood.
According to Dean, the entire tone of the White House changed over the leak of the Pentagon Papers. Nixon established a special investigations unit (Plumbers Unit) which was not allowed to talk to anyone. Watergate came out of the Plumbers Unit.
The Nixon administration went all the way to the Supreme Court trying to claim that the Pentagon Papers would harm National Security. When the Pentagon Papers were finally released there was nothing in them that was of any importance. Elsberg had removed any sensitive documents.
Of this current Congress, Dean said
Congress is an aider and abetter.
He explained that under LBJ and Nixon, Congress exercised its oversight responsiblities. Congress then did not allow party to get in the way of its responsiblities.
After each person had a chance to speak there was a question and answer session. I’m only going to address one thing said at this time.
During this sesson Dean stated that terrorism needs to be kept in perspective. There have been more drownings, more people killed in car accidents, more work place accidents causing death, etc. every year then have ever occurred due to terrorism.
Each person was also given a couple of minutes to give a final statement. Again, I’m not going to go into great detail here. I will, however, address John Dean’s final remarks.
Dean chose to quote from an article written by Elizabeth Drew. In her article, Drew writes about the Bush administrations power grab. She quotes Grover Norquist, one of the organizers of the conservative movement as saying
If you interpret the Constitution’s saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws you don’t have a constitution: you have a king. They’re not trying to change the law; they’re saying that they’re above the law and in the case of the NSA wiretaps they break it.
At the end of her article, Drew quotes James Madison when he wrote in the Federalist Papers
The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
Dean then quoted Drew’s final paragraph
That extraordinary powers have, under Bush, been accumulated in the “same hands” is now undeniable. For the first time in more than thirty years, and to a greater extent than even then, our constitutional form of government is in jeopardy.
Sometime today an archived webcast of the town hall will be available at www.aclu.org/presidentialpower. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes long. I suggest that everyone watch it.
