So last week, ABC News reported that a “senior law enforcement official” had told them that the phones of their investigative correspondents were being “tracked” by the government, in an attempt to ferret out leaks of confidential information. The content of the calls was not being monitored (so they were told), but the numbers being called were being recorded and analyzed.
Now, leaks of governmental secrets are a serious matter. On the one hand, they serve, as a last resort, as a public oversight of the government. In an administration where such oversight has been resisted, denied, or legislated away, such leaks are sometimes the only way the public can find out about programs that it, rightly, ought to be unhappy with.
On the other hand, there are activities that the government must do in secret, to some degree at least. Revealing such programs can endanger folks on the ground, threaten future abilities (or sources), or otherwise hamstring govern,ental action against threats to national security. One would expect, then, the government (whether consisting of evil crypto-fascist or white-hatted defenders of liberty) to go after those who leak secrets, however they can.
Interestingly, though, further info obtained by ABC, while indicating that the phones of ABC, the WaPo, and the NY Times, are not being “tracked,” says that what’s being gathered up by governmental sources are phone call records after the fact.
“It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,” said a senior federal official.
Swell.
In a statement, the FBI press office said its leak investigations begin with the examination of government phone records. “The FBI will take logical investigative steps to determine if a criminal act was committed by a government employee by the unauthorized release of classified information,” the statement said.
Officials say that means that phone records of reporters will be sought if government records are not sufficient.
Which, I suppose, makes sense. As long as, well, it’s something that can’t be abused.
Oops.
Officials say the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters (NSL).
The NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government.
Because the PATRIOT Act was, of course, intended to help the government track down whistleblowers and internal leaks, hence its lack of judicial oversight. Of course … not. It was intended and presented to allow shortcuts, expediencies, and highest security to allow the feds to combat terrorists.
But these aren’t terrorists, of course. They may be illegal/criminal activities, but that’s not what PATRIOT was purported to be about. Except, of course, whenever you give the government authority, especially without oversight, it will be used however it can be used. If that means checking out reporters’ phone records, so be it. If that means checking out my phone records, and the phone records of folks I’ve talked to, and the phone records of folks they’ve talked to — well, why not. And, more importantly, what’s to stop them?
“Power corrupts,” as Lord Acton put it. The secrecy of administration activities — secrecy about which the administration has been, if not paranoid, then fiercely adamant about, even to the point of putting out innumerable singning statements on laws saying that, well, if the Presdient decides it needs to stay secret, it will stay secret, regardless of what the law itself says — has built a reputation, not of security, but of mistrust. We don’t know that these powers are being egregiously misused, but we know they’re being stretched — and knowing the magnitude of what we don’t know (because it’s a secret, right?) can only lead one to wonder how much abuse is actually taking place, and how it could ever be stopped if it were.
(via J-Walk)