Bob Barr: "Congress Trashes Your Privacy"

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August 22, 2007

Bob Barr: "Congress Trashes Your Privacy"

Bob Barr, former Republican lawmaker turned Libertarian and ACLU member, nutshellizes the FISA revisions:

Thanks to the fact that a majority of members of Congress apparently cared more for starting their August recess on time than for protecting the Fourth Amendment-based privacy rights of the citizens they represent, this administration now is able to intercept any telephone or e-mail communication by anyone in this country, based on nothing more than an assertion that it believes one of the parties is overseas. No evidence or belief that one party to such conversations is a known or suspected terrorist -- the rationale for the legislation that the administration declared publicly -- is needed.

Despite such bipartisan clarity in the preamendment FISA law, we now know that this president decided in late 2001 to ignore this requirement of the law. He did not seek at the time to change it if he believed it to improperly limit his power as "commander in chief," but simply ignored it. Now, the Congress has given its blessing -- at least temporarily -- to Bush's violations of the old law. In so doing, it has subjected virtually every international call a person makes or e-mail anyone sends overseas to potential surveillance. The Congress did this by removing from the entire FISA mechanism -- and from any court oversight -- all calls, regardless of who makes them, if the government has reason to suspect that one of the parties is overseas. In other words, all international communications. The sweep of such power is indeed breathtaking. However, the Congress did get to leave for its August recess on time.

He goes on to note hopefully that there is, at least, a six-month sunset provision in the new law.

I don't know if anyone who has a problem with the way FISA was rewritten should expect the six-month do-over to make things any better. Barr chose to frame Congress's actions as motivated by sloth -- eagerness to start August recess -- which sounds funny, but isn't quite right. It seems a lot more likely that many Democrats acted out of timidity, not wanting the inevitable attack ad talking points to read "Then, in 2007, he voted against laws to keep us safe from terrorists!"

Fear of attack ads isn't going to lessen between now and next February. Moreover, there's a disturbing unspoken premise in debate around all privacy-eroding legislation, which is that it's o.k. to build a massive surveillance apparatus as long as the people building it have good intentions and as long as people who aren't "the bad guys" aren't waking up in interment camps.

That's a pretty complacent view of state power that says quite a bit about the trajectory of American thinking.