What's at Stake with Domestic Spying

My hat is off to Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R, New Mexico), who is calling for full investigations into the NSA domestic wiretapping scandal. She is chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, a watchdog for the NSA, and she is made suspicious of this program by the lack of information coming from the administration. According to the New York Times, she is apprehensive "about whom the agency is monitoring and why."

According to this poll, "64% of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States." In polls, everything boils down to the language. Sure, two-thirds believe Uncle Sam should listen to all of bin Laden's incoming calls. I do too. In fact, we have a legal process that allows our government to do that: The FISA court.

Now, ask yourself whether the NSA should be allowed to also surveil Americans who receive those calls and the people they call. Not as much, huh? What about bin Laden's wrong numbers? What about any incoming call from a suspicious region of the world? Terrorists do use pay phones, you know.

Of course, we don't know if the NSA is going this far or further since no one in the administration will discuss the program's limits with Congress. They assure us that a line is being drawn, but they clam up whenever Congress or the press ask for even the most vague details of the line. The administration doesn't even want us talking about this issue, since it alerts Al Qaida about the program--as if they couldn't have already guessed.

So here are a few reasons why we, as Americans, should not tolerate domestic spying:

1. We have no evidence it works. Cheney et al claim that this program could have prevented the September 11 attacks. This assertion totally forgets the intelligence and leadership failures leading up to the attacks. Remember the memo, "bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S.?" They tell us now that the program has foiled several terrorist plots. So where's the evidence? Our leaders in Congress have the clearance to see this evidence. Convince them and you'll convince me.
2. It's a slippery slope. The administration says we need this tool in the War on Terror. Don't we need this tool in the War on Drugs? Will we be able to use it in coming wars on deadbeat dads, tax evasion, and armed robbery? How can we keep from using a useful tool that is totally outside any supervision of Congress? In Monday's hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez implored Congress to trust the administration would not abuse this power. But the whole reason we have this FISA law is because previous administrations did abuse this power, even spying on journalists and civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. Considering the track record of Bush & Co., they do not deserve this kind of trust.
3. It will change us. What do I care? I've got nothing to hide from the government. But what about the professions that rely on secrecy and confidence, such as lawyers, psychiatrists, clergy, and especially journalists. When we know that these people could be wiretapped, we will believe that they are wiretapped. This is vitally important to our media. If people inside our government can't safely blow the whistle on things going on inside--like they did with this program, and Watergate, and many other scandals--then our republic will crumble. The three branches of our government check each other's power; the press checks them all.

Clearly we need to defend ourselves from foreign threats, but it makes no sense to saw off our arm just to use it as a club.