Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Ignatius Strikes Again
Washington Post Op-Ed ace David Ignatius polishes the national security state's apple as usual today.
The extra-legal NSA spying program is the topic of his piece.
Ignatius' thesis is that the NSA has developed new tools so fantastically advanced that new laws must be enacted to permit their legal use.
This tool of a writer obscures the fact that most, if not all, of these "advances" are only modifications of techniques that have been around for many years. The legal concepts in play are fully accounted for by existing provisions (and restrictions) of law.
A hint of Ignatius' strategy is glimpsed in the following:
Later he admits in writing that "in addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages..."
That ain't data mining, and he knows it. It gets worse:
The specific reason why the fourth amendment of the Constitution exists is to prevent the kind of wholesale intrusion (such as data mining and questionable eavesdropping) that Ignatius thinks is so peachy.
As Ignatius writes:
So, in the opinion of Mr. Ignatius, U.S. ineptitude in HUMINT is good enough reason to throw out important qualities that make (or made) America a free country.
The extra-legal NSA spying program is the topic of his piece.
Ignatius' thesis is that the NSA has developed new tools so fantastically advanced that new laws must be enacted to permit their legal use.
This tool of a writer obscures the fact that most, if not all, of these "advances" are only modifications of techniques that have been around for many years. The legal concepts in play are fully accounted for by existing provisions (and restrictions) of law.
A hint of Ignatius' strategy is glimpsed in the following:
We know only the barest outlines of what the NSA has been doing. The most reliable accounts have appeared in the New York Times, the newspaper that broke the story. Although the headline has been "warrantless wiretapping," the Times accounts suggest the program actually was something closer to a data-mining system that collected and analyzed vast amounts of digitized data in an effort to find patterns that might identify potential terrorists.
Later he admits in writing that "in addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages..."
That ain't data mining, and he knows it. It gets worse:
The legal problems, as Arkin suggests, involve the dots -- what digital information can the government legitimately collect and save for later analysis, and under what legal safeguards? As it trolls the ocean of data, how can the government satisfy legal requirements for warrants that specify at the outset what may only be clear at the end of the search -- namely, specific links to terrorist groups? These and other questions will vex lawyers and politicians in the coming debate, but they aren't a reason for jettisoning these techniques.
The specific reason why the fourth amendment of the Constitution exists is to prevent the kind of wholesale intrusion (such as data mining and questionable eavesdropping) that Ignatius thinks is so peachy.
As Ignatius writes:
America's best intelligence asset is technology. The truth is that America has never been especially good at running spies or plotting covert actions. Our special talent has been the application of technology to complex problems of surveillance.
So, in the opinion of Mr. Ignatius, U.S. ineptitude in HUMINT is good enough reason to throw out important qualities that make (or made) America a free country.
