--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: clips@philodox.com Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:22:37 -0500 To: "Philodox Clips List" <clips@philodox.com> From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> Subject: [Clips] Who's Spying Now? (was Re: OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today - March 29, 2006) Reply-To: rah@philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces@philodox.com At 3:56 PM -0500 3/29/06, OpinionJournal wrote:

Who's Spying Now? http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/28/D8GKO3I85.html

Congressional Democrats' domestic spying program suffered a setback in court yesterday, the Associated Press reports from Washington:

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A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. Jim McDermott violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago.

In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of House Majority Leader John Boehner, who was heard on the 1996 call involving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. . . .

McDermott, D-Wash., leaked to The New York Times and other news organizations a tape of a 1996 cell phone call The call included discussion by Gingrich, R-Ga., and other House GOP leaders about a House ethics committee investigation of Gingrich. Boehner, R-Ohio, was a Gingrich lieutenant at the time and is now House majority leader.

A lawyer for McDermott had argued that his actions were allowed under the First Amendment, and said a ruling against him would have "a huge chilling effect" on reporters and newsmakers alike.

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Meanwhile, the Washington Times http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060329-120346-1901r.htm reports that the president's terrorist surveillance program got support from some experts in the field:

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A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The five judges testifying before the committee said they could not speak specifically to the NSA listening program without being briefed on it, but that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not override the president's constitutional authority to spy on suspected international agents under executive order.

"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute."

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The Times, of course, has been crusading against the program. But in a December 2000 editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/07/opinion/07THU2.html?ex=1143781200&en=e9d860760a2ab08b&ei=5070 it argued that because McDermott himself did not make the recording of the GOP phone conversation, he should be off the hook:

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[Boehner's] suit seeks damages from Mr. McDermott for his disclosure of a tape he received from a Florida couple in which former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was heard discussing his ethics case. The Times published transcripts of those conversations.

The correct way to combat illegal interception of private conversation is to prosecute the people who actually do it, and to hasten the development of technology to make interceptions more difficult. It is not to trample on the rights of the press and ordinary citizens to disclose the content of information they received legally. The Supreme Court needs to affirm that.

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It would seem the Times is more troubled by the U.S. government spying on foreign enemies than by Democrats spying on their domestic opponents.

-- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips@philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'