Blood Pacts Are Seldom Broken

While the ACLU, CCR, EFF and other civil liberties groups are fighting valiantly to protect Americans against governmental eavesdropping, the fight may be losing for technological-political reasons, and not simply legally.

The vast web that is electronic snooping is world-wide and includes reciprocal agreements between countries to share information. The actual wiretappers, in many instances, are "private" companies contracted out by the NSA or other governmental agencies. In both such cases, Fourth Amendment protections are ineffective, and FISA courts inapplicable.

Take the 2006 agreement the U.S. government made with Mexico to build a huge telecom/Internet eavesdropping center. They don’t need to concentrate solely on communications originating or terminating in the United States… they are contracting it out!

What follows is from the State Department document used to procure vendors for the project with AFI (Mexico’s version of the NSA) noted above (.doc link and Google cache link):

This procurement action is undertaken to establish a lawful interception solution that will provide the Government of Mexico, Procuraduria General de la Republica de Mexico (PGR), Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI) with the capability to intercept, analyze, and use intercepted information from all types of communications systems operating in Mexico…. Equipment supplied must be manufactured in the United States….

The proposed system must comply with the following AFI stated requirements for interception of target calls and sessions from (1) TELMEX PSTN network, through analog lines, (2) TELCEL TDMA and GSM network, (3) NEXTEL iDEIM/GSM network, (4) TELEFONICA network, (5) UNEFON network, (6) IUSACELL CDMA network and TDMA network, (7) Existing CISCO VoIP network at customer’s premises, (8) packet data from the Mexico PRODIGY ISP network. Additionally the client desires the establishment of a central monitoring center with the capabilities of (1) real-time and off-line playback, (2) fax decoding, (3) packet data decoding, (4) storage of all calls for at least 25,000 hours, (5) storage of all session related information, (6) 30 monitoring stations and 30 printers, (7) cellular location and tracking. Capabilities must include TDMA, GSM, CDMA, iDEN, AMPS, PCS, landline, FAX, Email, chat, internet, SMS and VoIP….

1. The successful solution will fulfill the following:

a. Help deter, prevent, and mitigate acts of major federal crimes in Mexico that include narcotics trafficking and terrorism.
b. Strengthen the USG’s and Mexico’s protective posture to disseminate timely and accurate, actionable information to each country’s respective federal, state, local, private, and international partners.

As James Bamford noted in this book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, p. 228:

Since the U.S. certainly qualifies as an “international partner,” it means Mexico is obligated to disseminate its data to a U.S. agency. But what is perhaps even more troublesome is the requirement to share its data with “private” partners — in other words private surveillance companies within the U.S.

This type of arrangement with Mexico and other countries may in fact be among the most secret parts of the Bush administration’s entire warrantless eavesdropping program. That is because it completely bypasses the requirement for probable cause that one of the parties is connected to al-Qaeda. The intercepted data is gathered by Mexicans in Mexico… and passed in bulk to the U.S., possibly to the NSA or FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration.

Astute commenter, William Ockham, pointed out the following at an interesting post at Emptywheel/FDL yesterday:

... if you read (between the lines of) the documents filed in the Nacchio case, you can see that the NSA was paying the telcos to tap into all the fiber optic cable laid overseas so that the NSA could pull all that traffic into the Narus systems any time they wanted.

As a famous quote from an Oliver Stone movie says, “We are through the looking glass here, people.”

U.S. democracy is proving to be a giant failure, and in its place we are seeing the worst sort of nightmare any dystopian author could imagine.

Echelon II

Bamford calls the system of setting up taps on all fiber-optics cables, in conjunction with the use of private companies like Verint or Narus or NICE Systems, Echelon II. (For more introduction to Project Echelon, a massive signals intelligence global interception and relay system run by the U.S. and its closest allies, see this article.)

Bush attorney Stephen Bradley testified before the House Judiciary Committee (Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security), during hearings to discuss updating FISA (9/6/06), as reported at In These Times:

As a Justice Department attorney [Bradbury] told the House Judiciary Committee after the wiretapping program was revealed, “I think the president has made it clear that there is no other program that involves domestic electronic surveillance of domestic communications,” leaving open the possibility that foreign electronic surveillance of both foreign and domestic communications is still ongoing.

The NSA and other government agencies are throwing smoke and mirrors, and the ACLU and other groups are already lagging behind events. The government has been routing its eavesdropping work around U.S. prying eyes for some time. Bush’s real crime, from the standpoint of the spooks and FBI types is that he pushed hard to do in the U.S. what the government has promoted in dictatorships and authoritarian countries for some time, including reciprocal agreements, secret backdoors, etc. to such up the info. By pushing hard in the U.S., he was bound to stir up a hornets nest of civil libertarians, etc., or whistleblowers like Mark Klein, a San Francisco AT&T tech who demonstrated how the government was sucking all U.S. Internet traffic into servers at Room 641A at AT&T's Folsom Street building.

It’s not that Comey or the FBI were upset about all the wiretapping when they went to Ashcroft's hospital bed to get him to reject Bush/Gonzales's surveillance request. These cops got their dream come true when CALEA passed in 1994. They’ve spent much the subsequent years finding ways to expand access to the Internet, and one way they did that to get close to Verint, the private company that secretly taps most U.S. communications.

They just don’t want to get caught. If I’ve learned anything from my anti-torture work, it’s that these governmental crimes are concerned with cover-up from day one. If you think about it, it’s built into the covert mind-set and SOP. In fact, it’s one way to identify what is a covert op, i.e., there’s misdirection and cover-up from the very beginning.

We cannot be protected by FISA anymore. Nothing can protect us. That’s the shocking truth.

Orwellian Pessimism vs. Social Struggle

As if the reader cannot tell... I am very pessimistic these days. The release of the ICRC report on the CIA barely stirred a ripple, unless you frequent certain websites (as we do), but in Congress and the press as a whole, it’s business as usual, diverted by the circus that is the financial cataclysm. The latter itself is essentially a threatened strike by big finance capital to bring down the entire world financial system if it is not compensated for its amazing losses, once their attempt to totally game the system fell apart, mainly because they believed their own propaganda about the market.

The political parties are morally and practically dead. What they do doesn’t matter anymore. This is the legacy of lawless war, torture, and out-of-control spying. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans now staff this military-spy-surveillance world, both private and government, and they have a vested interest in its preservation. Moreover, the boards of the private companies move seamlessly in and out of the corporate world, including its financial, major energy and industrial sectors.

One asks, "Who’s in charge?" Is it really Dick Cheney from a safe house in Arlington? A very good question.

Do not look for a single individual. The rule is out there for anyone to see. It’s not a dictatorship of a single person. It’s rule by committees, and these committees are "democratically" open to anyone who has the money or has risen as a dedicated and talented servant of the system. It's rule by a class.

We’re about to have verified (oh, sometime this year, I believe), that the U.S. did conduct drug and behavioral experiments upon prisoners, and most likely Jose Padilla among them. (See also Padilla's attorneys' Motion to Dismiss for Outrageous Government Conduct.) Will anything happen as a result? Will we even see post-Church Committee laws passed to protect us? No. The demand for consensus was drawn in the sand on 9/11 (or rather in subsequent months and years), and sealed with the deaths of 100,000s of Iraqis and an unknown number of victims who suffered death by torture (likely in the hundreds, at least).

Blood pacts are seldom broken. If you didn’t speak out before, it’s very hard to do so now.

As a result, we will have both social decay, and more tumult and oppression. This is because while the populace is passive, it is disgruntled, and the oligarchy will want to snuff out any sparks of resistance or effective opposition. Obama may be humane - god, I hope so - but he totally accepts the need for the oligarchy to rule.

I’m not sure what should be done at this point. Without some kind of social struggle, the last bastions of liberty, which were set aside by having an independent judiciary, will succumb, and there will be nothing left to protect us.

After the Election: a Preview

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com has succinctly made the point about the pending Obama victory, saving me the trouble of writing it out in my own strained syntax:

It certainly seems, by all appearances, that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will win on Tuesday (though anything can happen, don't assume anything, etc. etc.). For reasons I've explained many times before, I consider that to be a good and important outcome (principally due to the need to excise the Right from power for as long as possible). But the virtually complete absence from the presidential campaign of any issues pertaining to the executive power abuses of the last eight years -- illegal eavesdropping, torture, rendition, due-process-less detentions, the abolition of habeas corpus, extreme and unprecedented secrecy, general executive lawlessness -- reflects how much further work and effort will be required to make progress on these issues no matter what happens on Tuesday.

It doesn't help that Obama has already voted with the national security fetishists on FISA expanded wiretapping.

On the other hand, Barack Obama came out publicly and strongly against the 2006 Military Commissions Act (which McCain supported). The MCA established the unfair military commissions that allowed evidence obtained by torture, upheld indefinite detention of prisoners, and in general gave a green light to U.S. torture. Yes, Obama spoke out against the MCA, but consider his reasoning:

But politics won today. Politics won. The Administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.

* And yet, we have a bill that gives the terrorist mastermind of 9/11 his day in court, but not the innocent people we may have accidentally rounded up and mistaken for terrorists - people who may stay in prison for the rest of their lives....

* And yet, we have Al Qaeda and the Taliban regrouping in Afghanistan while we look the other way. We have a war in Iraq that our own government's intelligence says is serving as Al Qaeda's best recruitment tool. And we have recommendations from the bipartisan 9/11 commission that we still refuse to implement five years after the fact.

The problem with this bill is not that it's too tough on terrorists. The problem with this bill is that it's sloppy.

Note Obama's insistence on being even rougher or smarter with the "terrorists" than Bush. He's repeated this numerous times during the election. He has to know that the Global War on Terror, like its antecedent and policy cousin, the War on Drugs, is a cover for imperialistic control and covert operations by the U.S., including intervention in the sovereign affairs of other states, often engaging in terrorist actions of our own (assassinations, sabotage, etc.). (Liliana Segura made much the same points in her more extended, and interesting article on "Obama and Torture" last February.)

I don't think I've heard one word in this election about reining in the CIA's use of torture, or about extraordinary rendition. When Obama was asked during the campaign if he would support the prosecution of Bush administration figures for crimes such as torture, he famously replied:

"If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," he said. But he quickly added, "I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of the Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems to solve."

The economic crisis has polished Obama's liberal credentials, mainly through the popularity of the tax-the-rich, and make jobs/build infrastructure program proposed by the Democratic candidate. But in so many ways, thus far Obama promises little will change in U.S. military policy. Bush's swagger and bellicosity may soon be gone -- and thank god for that! -- but the logic of events will continue to bring U.S. "interests" into conflict with those of other countries, especially economic interests. At such times, the political elite is fond of reminding us of Clausewitz's dictum that "War is a continuation of politics (Politik) by other means."

Perhaps the unfolding of the coming crises in Central and South Asia, Africa, and South America will push the American president to the left. But I wouldn't count on it. Perhaps it will be the political genius of Barack Obama that he can put off the day of reckoning, in which the thrust of U.S. influence to be supreme around the globe will meet its catastrophic confrontation. Again, though, I think not. Here's Obama's own take on projecting national security interests abroad, highlighting the need to

create a more robust capacity to train, equip, and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats.

The U.S. has actually been doing that for years. The program is called "School of the Americas," and is based in Fort Benning, Georgia. I don't hear anyone talking about shutting it down, not even "socialist" Obama.

SOA/ WHINSEC [Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the "new" name for SOA, since 2001] graduates have included some of the worst and most notorious human rights abusers in Latin American history, and for much of the world, the school, under any name, is synonymous with torture and impunity. SOA graduates have led military coups and are responsible for massacres of hundreds of people. Among the SOA's more than 60,000 alumni are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador and Hugo Banzar Suarez of Bolivia. SOA graduates were responsible for the Uraba massacre in Colombia, the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the massacre of 14-year-old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos and six Jesuit priests in El Salvador and hundreds of other human rights abuses. Closing the school would send a strong human rights message to Latin America and the world.

It will be an important moment in U.S. history for an African-American to be elected president. But after all the celebrations die down, the same old issues will be there. The political awakening of the U.S. population has barely begun. The forms of struggle against the entrenched power of the national security state and the military-industrial-technological complex that supports it have yet to be worked out.

However you look at it, the defeat of Bush acolyte McCain, and his right-wing populist-cum-demagogue Alaskan running mate, will be a good thing. But much struggle lies ahead, and the election of Obama does not necessarily portend a major change in U.S. foreign or military policy. A President Obama will get his honeymoon, but what comes after remains to be seen.

CIA Wiretapping, FISA, & an Obama Presidency

With the genuflection of the Democratic-led Congress to the Bush Administration for near-unlimited warrantless wiretapping privileges, I thought I would add some historical perspective to the ongoing analysis of this debacle. The fight against executive branch tyranny goes back a long time. The "flip" by Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama that led him to vote for the new FISA bill was not an electoral nod to a conservative electorate, but a necessary ticket to be rendered for entrance to the top spot at the apex of the national security state.

The amazing folks over at National Security Archive, who have posted the entire "family jewels" -- documents of CIA misdeeds in the 1950s-1970s -- and much, much more on the operations of the military and intelligence agencies, posted the link to the following documents. It discusses themes and facts highly relevant to the current debate on FISA, and is partially transcribed here as a public service and contribution to political discourse. The full document can be found here.

The January 26, 1973 Memo

This memo is from Lawrence Houston, then General Counsel of the CIA, to the Acting Chief, Division D. The subject? "Intercept of Communications in the U.S." Remember: this was written before the original FISA law was implemented later in the 1970s. According to a Wikipedia entry, "Division D was the joint CIA-NSA collection effort, where CIA would use clandestine operations personnel to emplace NSA SIGINT sensors." Earlier revelations of Division D activity has been covered by Wired Magazine. The New York Times also has published on CIA wiretapping of reporters, including a discussion of the activity as approved by the Kennedy administration (a fact inconvenient to those who hold up the Democrats as saviors from the GOP, which certainly isn't the case when it comes to National Security issues).

In the transcribed memo below (which is partial, please see here for full text), note the "exceptions" on prohibitions to wiretapping mentioned by Mr. Houston. Do they sound eerily familiar?

1. In referent you request our views as to the legal aspects of a radio telephone intercept activity carried on at our communications site [two or three words redacted]

2. The basic law is contained in section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S. C. 605, which prohibits interception of any radio communication without the authorization of the sender and also prohibits divulging the substance thereof to any person. Chapter 119 of Title 18, U.S.C., makes the interception of any wire or oral communication a crime punishable by $10,000 or five years' imprisonment, or both. There are two exceptions to these prohibitions:

a. The first provides for application through the Department of Justice to a Federal court for a court order authoizing such interception for specific purposes in connection with law-enforcement duties. Since this Agency is prohibited by statue from any police or law-enforcement activities, obviously we cannot operate under this exception.

b. The other exception is contained in section 2511 of Title 18, U.S.C., at subsection (3). This provides that the prohibition cited above on interception shall not limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect against attack, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States or to protects such information, and to protect the United States against overthrow by force or other unlawful means or against any other clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government.

3. The type of information you describe in your memorandum does not appear to fall within any of these categories and since its ultimate destination is BNDD [Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs], it appears to be collection for law-enforcement purposes, which as noted above is barred to this Agency by statute....

The May 7, 1973 Memo

A memorandum from the Chief of CIA Division D to the Deputy Director of Operations on May 7, 1973 was written to discuss "Potentially Embarrassing Activities Conducted by Division D."

There is one instance of an activity by Division D, with which you are already familiar, which the Agency General Counsel has ruled to be barred to this Agency by statue: the collection [approx. four words redacted] of international commercial radio telephone conversations between several Latin American cities and New York, aimed at the interception of drug-related communications. The background on this is briefly as follows: [about five or six lines excised]. Therefore on 29 September 1972 NSA asked if Division D would take over the coverage, and on 12 October 1972 we agreed to do so. On 14 October 1972 a team of interceopt operators from the [about seven or eight words redacted] began the coverage experimentally. On [unclear date] January 1973, NSA wrote to say that the test results were good, and that it was hoped this coverage could continue.

Because a question had arisen within Division D as to the legality of this activity, a query was addressed to the General Counsel on this score... With the receipt of his reply... the intercept activity was immediately terminated. There has been a subsequent series of exchanges between Division D and the General Counsel as to the legality of radio intercepts made outside the U.S., but with one terminal being in the U.S., and the General Counsel has ruled that such intercepts is also in violation of CIA's statutory responsibilities. [About four or five lines excised] Since the [few words redacted] link being monitored carries a large number of totally unrelated conversations, the operators do intercept other traffic, frequently involving U.S. citizens -- for example, BNDD staffers talking to their agents. I have described this situation to the General Counsel, and his informal judgment was that, as long as the primary purpose of the coverage is a foreign target, this is acceptable. He suggests, however, that it might be desirable to inform the Attorney General of the occasional incidental intercept of the conversations of U.S. citizens, and thus legalize the activity.

There's more, but I ask that you go to the NSA [National Security Archive, not National Security Agency -- there's no relation] link above to read the whole thing.

Of course, it's widely believed that the release of the CIA "family jewels" documents remained highly selective. We know, by their own testimony, that the CIA destroyed thousands of documents related to illegal activities over the years. But, as Noah Shachtman at Wired put it, documents such as those highlighted in the piece you're reading have a particular significance:

Before the release of the "family jewels," some speculated that CIA director Michael Hayden might be allowing the documents to see the light of day, to make today's operations seem meek, in comparison. But, at least in this one small area, yesterday's spooks seem a lot more scrupulous than some of today's. After all, it was Hayden himself who authorized the surveillance programs that wound up ensnaring so many American citizens in their nets.

Obama and the National Security State

Millions of people will be making a decision soon regarding a choice for President of the United States. McCain is certainly a clear choice for continuation of the dangerously insane Bush policies. Obama's vote on the FISA bill has put serious doubt into the minds of many as to whether he will be different. (He did vote for amendments to limit the Bush-supported bill and take away telecom immunity.) No one has a crystal ball, so no one really knows, and arguments can be made on both sides.

When it comes to domestic policies and competency in government, a very good argument can be made that Barack Obama is the progressive candidate (or the best we can do at this time). But when it comes to national security matters, and the massive influence of military contractors, and the pervasive influence of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies -- even their supremacy, many might argue -- Obama's vote on FISA telegraphs to those who run such agencies and associated organizations that Obama won't go too far in challenging their activities. This is chilling, as the expansion of the infrastructure of the "anti-terrorist" domestic security apparatus is moving along very rapidly.

This is the truth, circa July 2008. What might happen if Obama is elected is anyone's guess. There are many in the power structure of this country that fear that forces unleashed by the belief that a progressive president is in power will not be contained by the Democratic Party, or a Democratic President and Congress. If Obama is elected, elements within the national security and military apparatus will move quickly, in the initial months of an Obama presidency, to force Obama to commit himself to their agenda. He has shown he is willing, but then, he does not have the power yet.

I see little to believe Obama will make the necessary challenge to the national security state apparatus. In any case, he cannot do it alone. He will need the people behind him, an informed people. And in that spirit, I offer this history lesson today.

FISA & the Dream of Total Omnipotence

Niemand sieht mich, wenn er mich sucht;
doch überall bin ich, geborgen dem Blick.

Perhaps the commenter August Adams put it best, following upon a Robert Parry article on the Democratic capitulation on telecom immunity for illegal Bush administration wiretapping:

So we are a Capitalist State

So, fascism is led by a dictator, so how does a "super" capitalistic state, one where the President and the Congress and the Senate are all in lock Step, differ from a Fascist state where the Dictator simply seizes power.

I guess we live in a State where the leaders simply use the Corporate Controlled Capitalist Media to spin propaganda and the "electoral" process is manipulated to select our rulers.

Once elected, the House and the Senate know now that they must be in lock step with the Corporate powers that paid their way or they will be funded out of office.

So we have the best Corporate Government money can buy.

Looks like we need a new definition for our country. It's not a democracy of by and for the people. It's a corporate government of by and for the Super Capitalists. And it looks like things are a whole lot worse and more entrenched then we ever imagined.

Soon, our Representatives won't even need to pretend to pander to the people during the election cycles - they do whatever they want anyway.

It's all so clever - and virtually complete - I just wonder - what's next?

So we all go along with pretending there will be "Change" in November, what happens when it is just more of the same corporate controlled nonsense?

The "compromise" over wiretapping was engineered by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and blessed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced she would not in any case obstruct the "compromise". Even Barack Obama got into the act, calling the amnesty (legal amnesty for the telecoms, political amnesty for Bush) the best "we" could hope for at this time. If the trashing of Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure were not enough, it is the validation of the counterfeit "terrorist" meme that is most disturbing. Here's Obama on FISA:

"Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance -- making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future....

"It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives -- and the liberty -- of the American people."

Obama reveals what an ordinary politician he really is, mimicking the Bush demagogy about the "fight against terrorism" and "legitimate threats". He rewrites history with the best of his compatriots, talking about a restoration of FISA. Except FISA, i.e., legally established courts to review national security requests for covert surveillance, was always the law. Nothing is "restored" here, unless it be the concept of a monarchy that exists above the law, and its corollary, a rubber-stamp legislature that neurotically polices itself for lèse-majesté.

Of course, it is the Bush Administration that is most ecstatic over their victory. They proved to themselves yet again that there is almost nothing they can do for which they will be held to account, and that their ostensible opposition is in thrall to them. Those who are not remain marginalized and even maligned by the larger majority that cannot see past the lies of the corporate media, and are pledged to an incremental vision of "progress" that loses ground as quickly as Achilles in his race against the tortoise.

At the opera the other day (I must be a true "elitist," after all), I was struck at how the dream of the dwarf Alberich in Wagner's Ring of the Niebelung to be all-powerful, all-seeing, and everywhere at once, and able to totally observe and discipline his enslaved followers, matches that dream which quickens the deadened souls of our own enfeebled national leadership.

Alberich has fashioned a special device that allows him to change shape at will, to become invisible, if need be, and to transport himself anywhere he wishes instantaneously. He tells his interlocutor:

Now he is watching you
everywhere:
repose and rest
is refused you:
you must work for him
though he is unseen;
expect him
when you do not perceive him;
you are his vassals for ever!
Hoho! Hoho!
Listen for him, he is near,
the Lord of the Nibelungs!

*****
No one can see me,
though he search for me;
yet I am everywhere,
hidden from sight.

Liberals and the Surveillance State

Quick, go read Glenn Greenwald's excellent dissection of the pallid liberal apologia on FISA, The "liberal" position on the Surveillance State, over at Salon.com. Greenwald demonstrates that, as the Democratic Congress gets ready to capitulate to Bush on amnesty for the telecoms for selling our privacy for cozy governmental relations, it is only the latest in a long slide of giveaways by liberals regarding our privacy.

The FISA is a classically Kafka-esque court that operates in total secrecy. Only the Government, and nobody else, is permitted to attend, participate, and make arguments. Only the Government is permitted to access or know about the decisions issued by that court. Rather than the judges being assigned randomly and therefore fairly, they are hand-picked by the Chief Justice (who has been a GOP-appointee since FISA was enacted) and are uniformly the types of judges who evince great deference to the Government. As a result, the FISA court has been notorious for decades for mindlessly rubber-stamping every single Government request to eavesdrop on whomever they want. Just look at this chart (h/t Arthur Silber) for the full, absurd picture.

Yet now, embracing this secret, one-sided, slavishly pro-government court defines the outermost liberal or "pro-civil-liberty" view permitted in our public discourse. And indeed, as reports of imminent (and entirely predictable) House Democratic capitulation on the FISA bill emerge, the FISA court is now actually deemed by the establishment to be too far to the Left -- too much of a restraint on our increasingly omnipotent surveillance state. Anyone who believes that we should at the very least have those extremely minimal -- really just symbolic -- limitations on our Government's ability to spy on us in secret is now a far Leftist....

When FISA was first unveiled at the height of the Cold War, it was publicly supported by what a May 23, 1977, pro-FISA Washington Post Editorial described as "leaders of the intelligence community and Congress"....

But opposition to FISA -- in many civil libertarian and even conservative circles -- was fierce, not on the ground that it imposed too many restrictions on Government eavesdropping but on the opposite ground: that FISA gave legal sanction to sweeping, excessive, unchecked government power to spy on Americans....

The political establishment today knows only one viewpoint: literally no limits are tolerable on the power of the loving, protective Surveillance State.

Need I say... go read the whole article!