Block Shots

The Real Issue with FISA

2006-02-19T11:11:00.000-05:00

Talk about missing the point. The Senate and the media are asking useless questions:

Did the President break the FISA law?
Was the Congress properly informed?
Is FISA outdated?
Is the program useful enough to justify domestic wiretaps?

Who cares! The legality of a program that everyone vehemently agrees is useful to our national defence is a moot point. If it isn't legal today, then it will be soon. If the Democrats think the law-breaking on this issue is a political liability for the President, then they are mistaken.

The key question that is only rarely being asked has not yet been answered. This question should be informing the public debate, and it has not been addressed by the President or Congress to anyone's satisfaction as yet:

Are there any limits on executive power in wartime?

Here is the logic. The president chose to ignore the FISA law. This is not important in itself (he did so with reason and with "safeguards" in place). This is important because of the precedent it sets. If the President does not believe he is beholden to the laws passed by Congress, then we must wonder whether or not there are any limits or oversight over presidential action.

The rest of this post will explain why it is obvious that the law was ignored, then why it is so significant that it was.

The President Believed He Had the Power to Ignore FISA

Since it underpins my argument, I'm forced to point out that the President did choose to ignore the FISA law. Noone can argue that the President's actions are in direct violation of FISA (even the administration doesn't deny that). The legal argument being made by AG Gonzales is that powers inherent in Article II of the Constitution, paired with Congress' authorization to fight Al Qaida constitute a "statute" envisioned within FISA as an exemption from itself.

However, we must assume any such statute should be clear and explicit. Any lower standard would make FISA useless to begin with. So we must see how explicit this exemption statute is.

Article II says nothing on this issue beyond that it is the President's job to defend the country. Later Supreme Court rulings have interpreted that power to include warrantless surveillance of wartime enemies on foreign soil (but say nothing about breaking existing laws).

That leaves us with the authorization to use force against Al Qaida. The text of that authorization is:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Not only does the text of the resolution not mention the use of force domestically, but according to Tom Dashle who helped negotiate the text of the resolution...

Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

Washington Post Op-Ed by Tom Dashle, 12/23/05.

So not only did Congress specifically deny the authorization for use of "appropriate force" within the United States, but the White House (at the time) felt that the explicit addtion of those words were needed to permit domestic action.

So that is far too much time spent on the unimportant issue. Clearly the president chose to ignore the laws on the books because he believed he had the right to do so in order to protect us all. That leads us to the key question:

Is There Anything The President Cannot Do?

Bob Schieffer: Do you believe that there is anything that the President cannot do if he considers it necessary?

President Bush: I don't think a President can order torture. I don't think a President can order the assasination of the leader of another country with which we are not at war. Yes, there are clear red lines.

From Face the Nation Interview aired 1/29/06.

If laws on the books are not sufficient to deter presidential action to protect us, what is the criteria? As a country, we must know what those "red lines" are. Why can't a president order torture, but can order domestic surveillance? Without clear criteria we take a huge risk of immoral abuse of this executive power over time.

For example, are the following actions permitted without Judicial or Legislative oversight?

Detainment of American's suspected of terrorism without representation
Surveillance of any American with or without an international side of the call
Imposement of martial law in an area suspected of terrorism
Postponement of local or national elections to ensure the safety of polling places
Extension of a presidential term?

I'm not suggesting the George Bush is about to round up all Muslims and put them into camps, or begin bugging political opponents on the grounds they may be meeting with terrorists.

However, we've now learned that there is no oversight to prevent that kind of abuse. We must clearly define limits-of-power to protect ourselves from less scrupulous future actions. Past democracies have turned to authoritarian regimes without those limits. We must aggressively protect and enforce the limits and balances dictated by the Constitution.

Just tell us what the criteria is. It seems to me that "the Executive cannot break or ignore a federal law" might be a good start. I'm sure we can all agree on something that provides the protections we need while also protecting our democracy.

Too Late for the Court

2006-02-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

Although I'd hoped to have made this post several weeks ago, it is nonetheless fitting that I'm posting this now: well after the Alito confirmation hearings and public debate. Yes, this posting is too late to inform the debate; but similarly, the entire public debate occurred far too late to make any difference in the makeup of the Court.

The fate of the Supreme Court was sealed when we elected our President in 2000 and 2004. The President picks the justices; and we selected a socially conservative executive who openly opposes a woman's right to choose.

After the fact of the 2004 election results, it was both futile and divisive to fight the nomination of a Supreme Court candidate who was clearly qualified for the job. Certainly, the confirmation process was useful and necessary to guarantee Justice Alito's credentials. However, all the attempts by democrats to get Alito to admit he'd overturn Roe or eliminate all controls on presidential power were doomed to failure from the start. Even had they succeeded in rattling Justice Alito into a public-relations mistake, the next candidate would have been just as conservative.

Even though I'm appalled that we have a court becoming more and more conservative, I believe we must respect the process. Within the rules it was fine to try to find any reasonable reason to keep Alito off the court. Once those arguments were exhausted, the Senate should have voted on his qualifications and ability to fairly evaluate cases, not on his likelihood to overturn Roe. Had there been a Democrat in the White House, we less conservative citizens would have demanded as much for any candidate.

I believe that the majority of American's would not support (what I believe will be) Alito's stance on social, right-to-life and executive-powers issues. If you are upset about the Court's possible overturn of Roe, but you voted for Bush in 2004, then shame on you for not realizing the implications of your vote. The makeup of the Court was the largest (albeit rarely-discussed) issue of the 2004 election.

But that ship has sailed.

Right for All the Wrong Reasons

2006-01-02T09:04:00.000-05:00

How did we end up where we are with our policy in Iraq? The administration's National Strategy of Victory in Iraq is a clear, concise and focused document. Shockingly, I find myself agreeing with the administration almost point-by-point. Here are a few:

"An emerging democracy in Iraq will change the regional status quo that for decades has bred alienation and spawned the transitional terrorism that targets us today."
"Failure in Iraq will embolden terrorists..."
"It is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy [sic] to be in place less than three years after Saddam was finally removed from power."

This is wonderful. The Bush Administration is publicly stating several new strategies that were either understated or never stated before:

Regime change in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest, but not because of an imminent threat of WMD use; it is vital because we need a beacon of democracy in the region to provide an alternative to extremism.
That goal is attainable, but not with just a few billion dollars and a short military campaign, but rather with a long-term (more than three years at least) and huge resource commitment to political, security and economic efforts.

The administration will reply that this is not a change in policy, but I cannot swallow that explanation. I was there. We were all there when we were told that the reasons for invading Iraq were:

Potential use of WMDs by Iraq.
Distribution of WMDs to terrorists who might use them directly against American targets here or abroad, bolstered by...
Repeated claims that there was a linkage between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

What is the explanation for the discrepancy between what we're being told today and the justifications for war back in 2002? There are only 2 logical explanations:

This was our strategy all along and it just wasn't "spotlighted," or
The administration adjusted strategy when political expediency forced a change.

This blog entry will assume the best intentions and motivations of the administration. This leads us to assume the first of those explanations: that today's stated policy was our strategy all along.

Since we have no proof (yet) that intelligence was intentionally manipulated to make the WMD claims, I will also assume for the purposes of this blog entry that the administration truly believed in the WMD and Al-Qaida-link intelligence when they put these justifications for war in front of us.

So assuming the best of our leaders and that today's stated strategy was always the policy, here is what must be the timeline:

Early on in the administration there was a recognition that the key to security and stability in the Middle East was a democratic Iraq.
Knowing these lofty justifications would be a difficult "sell" to Congress and the American people, Bush focused on the WMDs as the key argument (believing it true and thus highlighting only one in the most urgent of his many reasons for removing Saddam).
Bush assumed that political stability in post-war Iraq would come quickly and the longer-term goals of democracy would be attainable with minimal additional cost.
Since things didn't work out with minimal additional cost, the administration is now forced to bring those longer-term, loftier goals to the forefront of the stated policy.

Therefore, regime change was on the agenda from the beginning. The difficulty would be convincing the American people to "get behind" such an effort. 9-11 provided a convenient way to do just that. This is consistent with Richard Clarke's claim that Bush pulled him aside on September 12th asking him to search for a linkage between 9-11 and Saddam.

When a direct linkage was not found, WMDs, paired with intelligence "linking" Saddam to Al-Qaida provided the most effective argument. Recognizing this as the best way to get the Congress and the rest of America behind the war, the administration focused on this argument almost exclusively at the time.

At the same time, again assuming the best of intentions, the administration severely underestimated the scope of the aftermath. The insurgency was unanticipated and security turned out to be far more difficult than anyone predicted. Also unanticipated were the political difficulties in creating a government and the infrastructure challenges in re-establishing basic services in support of the economy. The administration assumed that we would be welcomed as liberators and that it would be "easy" (relative to what we are experiencing) to accomplish the longer term goals now explicitly stated in our National Strategy.

Since the short-term approach didn't work quickly enough to establish the democratic beacon of hope, the administration is now forced to either change or fully publicize this as the central pillar of our strategy there. Now that the WMD threat is clearly gone, we need a new justification.

In almost no scenario do I believe the Bush administration felt that WMDs were the only justification for war. In truth, it would be naive for any of us to think there is only one reason. We've heard many reasons floated (oil, Bush Sr. assasination-attempt payback, WMDs, freedom and democracy, Al-Qaida linkages, moral outrage at Saddam, etc.) all of which make sense and probably combined to influence the final decision.

In this "best-intentions to the administration" theory, the key undoing of the plan was underestimating the post-war time it would take to establish a stable government. This critical error was avoidable and was predicted by many (I remember at least reading Thomas Friedman detailing these kinds of difficulties before the invasion). Nonetheless, we assume the best of intentions and an honest miscalculation.

However, the real mistake was focusing America and the international community on WMDs as the primary justification for war. The American people should have been told the real goals, which would have fueled public debate on how to accomplish those objectives. This could have led to:

Realistic expectations of ordinary Americans with the commitments and sacrifices necessary to achieve the goals--and therefore--longer-term support for the war.
Recognition of the potential post-war issues. My assumption is that had our true objectives been exposed, public debate would have uncovered the post-war risks far better than they did and better prepared us for them.
More international support for the war effort, so we could share the load and better establish a new government in Iraq.
The real possibility that none of this would have "flown" with the public and America would not have supported a decision to go to war. This is a better option than fighting a war we don't end up having the stomach to finish.

I'd hope we'd have recognized the risks of not fighting this war and moved forward removing Saddam. But we're doomed to fail in an effort that is undermined by political spin and expediency.

Wouldn't it have been better to have been told the truth from the beginning?

President Bush - How Can I Dissent?

2005-11-19T07:56:00.000-05:00

Dear President Bush,

In your recent Veteran's Day speech you say something almost off-hand during your appeal not to "rewrite history" on the possibility of intelligence manipulations. You said:

"While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."

While I respectfully disagree that the Democrats are trying to rewrite history, I'd like to focus on the first half of the sentence. I'd hope that all Americans can agree that it is legitimate to criticize the conduct of the war: the freedom to express one's opinion is a lynchpin in the democratic society we're fighting to protect!

So my question, Mr. President, is how can I dissent? I spent 2 hours last night listening to members of your party telling me how irresponsible the Democrats are for calling the conduct of the war into question. Any criticism of the conduct or reasoning for going to war is portrayed as:

encouragement to our enemy
discouragement to our troops

Is it fair to use these two criticism criticisms to quell dissent? What kind of dissenting voice is allowed?

Encouraging the Enemy

I do not think it is possible to publicly criticize your decision to go to war or your conduct of the war without encouraging the enemy to some degree. So we have a choice to make: temporarily encourage the enemy or undermine our democratic ideals. Given that choice, I certainly prefer that we permit Americans to speak their minds without fear of being labeled treasonous.

I used the phrase "temporarily encourage" deliberately in the previous paragraph. I believe that the only way we can succeed in Iraq is to do so unified as a country, and the only way to unify is to allow dissenting voices to be heard so that we can move forward together toward our goals. A divided America cannot unite Iraq!

While criticizing an "inability to dissent" in this letter, you may be surprised to hear that I sincerely hope that we keep to our goal and succeed in establishing an Islamic Alternative to extremism in Iraq. It is my personal belief that a stable and democratic Iraq is the best way to fight terrorism at its source. But we will fail unless America is united in our aim and is willing to make the significant sacrifices needed to succeed.

Discouraging Our Troops

On this point I truly believe that we can publicly dissent and still support the brave men and women in uniform that sacrifice so much for us. In fact, as Representative Murtha has pointed out: the best way we can encourage our troops is to make sure they know we're trying to unite as a country around a plan that will succeed.

Never having been in the military I cannot be certain how I would react if I were stationed in Iraq and heard my Congress calling my mission into question. Therefore, I recognize that my opinion here is speculation. However, if:

the criticisms were leveled at the plan and the strategy,
with the goal to make sure that my sacrifice would either be successful (or if success is not possible, shortened)...

...then I don't believe I'd be upset. And, if I was myself questioning the progress of the war I'd be downright grateful. I hope that you will ask active military personnel and their families for their reactions. Based on Representative Murtha's reading of letters from military families on the Floor last night, it sounds as though many in the military are pleased that someone is speaking up with another view.

What is the Answer?

Can you provide a process that allows for reasonable men and women to discuss, criticize and make their voices heard? If so, please help create that process. The resolution of that public debate is absolutely necessary in order to bring this country together so that we can complete the important work that we've begun in Iraq.

Sincerely,

A Reasonable American

An Islamic Alternative

2005-08-18T19:02:00.000-04:00

The Iraq War has been a mess. In a future post I'll explain how and where our country went wrong to get us into this quagmire. That said, we need to be there and we need to be trying to do what we finally seem focused upon doing: supporting the creation of an Islamic Alternative to extremism.

Our efforts in Iraq are a critical step in the "global war on terror;" but not for the reasons so often given by the president and members of the Bush administration. Saddam Hussein did not have direct links to Al Qaeda.

However, Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a monster and any government would have been justified in intervention. His regime was brutal to his neighbors and his own people. While Iraq was not the only government against which we could morally and ethically justify intervention, it was certainly on the list.

At the same time, America was (and is) in the throes of a huge battle with Islamic extremism. I believe the roots of this battle lie in one problem: the economic stagnation and political oppression under which much of the Islamic world suffers. This oppression is imposed by many of the goverments the United States supports. The environment is a breeding ground for scapegoating, hatred and extremism. Many of these governments tolerate (and even support) Islamic extremism as it effectively reflects blame from their own policies.

For the downdrotten masses of Muslims in the Middle East, there is no ideological alternative to extremism. The schools and mosques too often preach a version of Islam that leaves no room for tolerance. The dangers of permitting this kind of ideology to be the primary message heard by young Muslims were demonstrated clearly on 9/11.

The only solution is the creation of an Islamic Alternative in the Middle East. Young Muslims must have somewhere to turn that demonstrates that tolerance of others is not a weakness; that hard work can bring personal and community prosperity; that the rule of law need not be synonymous with fear; that their efforts can help their causes and that their voices can make a difference.

The Alternative must be viewed as "homegrown" in order to be successful. Anything viewed as having been imposed from the non-Islamic West is doomed to failure for the same reason that moderates have had such a hard time gaining ground in the Middle East up to now: their messages of tolerance are twisted by extremists to paint reformers as supporters of the West. Only if the government is widely viewed as independent from the West can it be a viable, trusted Islamic Alternative.

Iraq, teasingly taunting the U.S. with violations of Security Council resolutions provided the perfect opportunity to create this Alternative. We needed a country large enough to affect many people, and evil enough to allow the regime "changers" to be viewed as liberators: morally driven supporters able to give Iraqis a chance to set up their own moderate (homegrown) government.

Of course, the mistakes we've made in prosecuting the war and the peace may have undermined this great opporunity (though I'm not ready to give up on this yet). In my next post I'll summarize how I think the Bush administration has misled the American people and the rest of the world in a way that can only endanger the long-term success of this critical project.

In the meantime, I remain hopeful that the continued sacrifices of more and more American lives truly pay off to create an alternative so that the children growing up in the Middle East today can choose to respect and tolerate their neighbors. I also remain hopeful that my goals for Iraq actually do bear some resemblence to what President Bush would like to see happen in there.

About This Blog

2005-08-02T18:45:00.000-04:00

This is my first blog posting. I wanted to create a blog about two separate things, and see where the blog takes me:

Personalization: I work for a company called ChoiceStream that creates personalization software, so I end up spending a lot of time thinking about and theorizing on the power and dangers of personalization, collection of profiles and recommendations. The blog is a chance to create a record of those thoughts.
Politics: I think of myself as a rare breed: an ardent supporter for regime change in Iraq who just as ardently stands in opposition to the methods and messages of our President. It seems to me that President Bush often tries to do the right things in such incredibly wrong and dangerous ways that I am literally frightened for my freedom. Of course, I'd be just as frightened in a world that wasn't helping solve the issues of islamic extremism in the only way that will ever work: by helping create a cultural alternative to that extremist way of life.

So I'll look forward to more posts as a way to "let it out" when I'm frustrated, excited or perplexed about the personalization or political issues of the day. Perhaps the two topics will someday even come together: a recommendation engine that tells you who to vote for? Hmm.