More Lying on Spying

One thing I have to take issue with in the State of the Union Address was this passage:

It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al Qaeda operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack -- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous Presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed. The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.

Pretty much all of that is patently false, but let's just focus on the idea that we could've stopped the September 11th attacks if we had the authority to intercept these phone calls from two of the hijackers. First of all, if the authority for domestic wiretapping is granted by inherent commander-in-chief powers in the Constitution, why weren't we doing it then? I mean, if other Presidents had used this authority, certainly President Bush should have used it to try and stop 9/11, right? Is he admitting that he failed on 9/11 here?

Well, he ought to, since, as Max Blumenthal writes:

In fact, Al-Midhar (one of the hijackers who made this call) bought his plane ticket for Flight 77 with his real name. At the time, he was wanted by the FBI and CIA for attending a terrorist meeting in Malaysia. He was also on a State Department watch list called TIPOFF. Al-Hazmi also bought a ticket for Flight 77 using his real name. And he shared an address as 9/11 hijacker Nawaq Alhazmi. Al-Midhar, for his part, was living with Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the plot.
Al Gore brought these facts forward in his 2003 speech, "Freedom and Security," and to date, no one has challenged him.

The point is, if existing programs had been utilized properly, and the FBI had conducted simple searches for common addresses among wanted terrorists living in the US, the 9/11 plot might have been foiled. Besides being illegal, Bush's domestic wiretapping program was -- and is -- unnecessary in protecting America from terrorism.

Furthermore, international wiretapping done by the NSA on the day before 9/11 turned up chatter like this:

September 10, 2001: NSA intercepts two messages in Arabic. One says; "The match is about to begin", the other says; "Tomorrow is the zero hour". The NSA claims that the messages were not translated in time.

So the FBI dropped the ball. The CIA dropped the ball. The NSA dropped the ball in translating wiretaps properly. And this is the group we want to give MORE power to spy? How about they master the programs already in place before starting new ones they can botch?

We know that virtually all of the calls and phone numbers turned up in this "terrorist surveillance program" have led to dead ends or innocent Americans. We also know that the current domestic spying would be completely legal were the government simply to get a warrant under FISA. They didn't even try to do this before 9/11. Afterwards, they decided warrants weren't necessary. Given all these facts, one can only conclude that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" isn't about watching terrorists. It's about watching Americans.

P.S. Watch this amusing video and sign the No Spy List.