As if it weren’t bad enough that torture is now a word on the tip of every American’s tongue, we can now have a discussion about why we don’t wiretap, thanks to the NSA and Rep. Jane Harman, who allegedly paid for her chairmanship of the intelligence panel by bowing to blackmail.
Yes, those wiretaps were not just conducted on folks like you and I. Our representatives were also tapped, and one of those taps picked up Jane Harman promising to lobby for reduced charges against AIPAC officials, in exchange for AIPAC’s lobbying effort to have Harman appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”
Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman.
With the thought in mind that these are still allegations, not substantiated by official transcripts or other evidence, let’s walk down the slippery slope, shall we?
First, read this:
What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.
And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.
Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.
Let’s step back and review this. Harman is picked up on an alleged court-approved wiretap, and the fruit of that wiretap is then used to pressure her into supporting the wiretaps that were illegal, just as the story was breaking.
I think that’s blackmail. And it doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Let’s review how these wiretaps were conducted.
- With no real evidence, the NSA could tap anyone’s line without going to the FISA court for approval for a period of time.
- If they wished to continue, they took their request to the secret FISA court, who would then approve said request for a period of time.
- Before the 2008 modifications and renewal of FISA, the Bush administration was, in many cases, not seeking approval of the FISA court at all.
Setting aside Harman’s activity for a minute (I’ll come back to it), let’s talk about the ethics (or wanton lack thereof) of putting wiretaps on our elected representatives. You’ve just seen a shining illustration of why it was so important to the Bush administration to have these secret peeks into people’s private conversations, now think about how it compromised our lawmaking process, our democracy, the integrity of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
For what? Nothing other than political gain. This is the same thing that brought Richard Nixon down — the controlling, totalitarian need to know what his opponents were doing at every step of the way.
Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a “completed crime,” a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said.
And they were prepared to open a case on her, which would include electronic surveillance approved by the so-called FISA Court, the secret panel established by the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to hear government wiretap requests.
First, however, they needed the certification of top intelligence officials that Harman’s wiretapped conversations justified a national security investigation.
Then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss reviewed the Harman transcript and signed off on the Justice Department’s FISA application. He also decided that, under a protocol involving the separation of powers, it was time to notify then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Pelosi, of the FBI’s impending national security investigation of a member of Congress — to wit, Harman.
Goss, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, deemed the matter particularly urgent because of Harman’s rank as the panel’s top Democrat.
Did you follow the sequence there? They wiretapped her, then decided to take it to the FISA court.
That’s backwards. Completely and totally backwards.
Do not argue that the end justifies the means. It doesn’t. The very foundation of our nation rests on the rule of law. That means that laws are to be followed and respected. And that means that there should have been NO wiretapping of anyone, but especially an elected representative, without prior court approval.
Alberto Gonzales knew this. He knew that if Harman’s wrongdoing was made public at the same time that the New York Times was about to break the illegal wiretap story, there would be no chance that Congress would reauthorize it.
But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.
According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.
Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program
He was right.
Jane Harman’s willingness to bargain her ethics away for her political career is bad enough. She should not be in Congress. But the Bush Administration’s high-handed abuse of power is something we cannot and should not allow to go by the wayside in the name of “moving forward”.
They eavesdropped on Congressional Democrats. Harman was targeted because she was a top Democrat on the intelligence committee. They wiretapped our elected representatives to force them to do the bidding of the Bush Administration, to force them into a place where they would publicly support policies that directly contravened the will and well-being of the people they represent.
If the tables were turned and the Obama administration tapped Republicans’ lines, I’d be just as furious, because this is the bottom line:
In this country, we do not eavesdrop on people’s private conversations without reasonable cause and a court-approved order. Or at least, we should not. The Bush administration has seriously undermined that effort.
I can’t stay quiet on this one. I support the Obama administration on most things, but on this and on torture, it’s time to speak for what is right and call for a public investigation and laws that will prevent any similar abuse of power in the future.
And while we’re at it, let’s put some blame at the feet of Jane Harman. If she had any sense of her responsibility as a representative elected by the people, she would have acted according to a balanced ethic even after promising to lobby for those AIPAC officials. All it would have taken was her standing up and saying she did wrong and let the chips fall where they may. Except that she didn’t. She sold her soul and our democracy down the river for power and prestige.
It is time for us to demand that the house be cleaned and the proper firewalls put in place so that we do not have to wonder who is listening to our conversations in person, on the internet, in our email and on our phones. This is not something to be swept under the rug. I’m sure there will be Democrats pulled out in the process without the same being done to Republicans, given which fox was in charge of the henhouse during the illegal wiretaps. So be it. The rule of law is more important.
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