NSA Surveillance

Recently, there has been a half-hearted debate regarding the National Security Agency's monitoring of telephone calls between people located in America and known Al-Qaeda affiliates. This has caused quite a stir, and probably has damaged some of our intelligence capabilities.

It is very important, however, to understand what it is that we are talking about here. Further, it is my opinion that lawmakers should decide upon appropriate use of this power, which has been ocurring in this capacity for many years, at least preceding the current administration to the previous administration.

I believe it is fair to say that nearly all Americans would agree that we are "at war" with at least Al-Qaeda, and perhaps linked organizations within the Muslim Brotherhood (Islamic Jihad, Jemaat Islamiya, etc.). So from that reasoning, I believe most people would agree that it is a military duty to attempt to monitor the communications of Al-Qaeda, particularly if it involves communications to this country from nation-states, such as Afghanistan. Please note, this does not mean that all communications between the United States and Afghanistan are monitored. This means that all communications between the United States and a know Al-Qaeda operative or associate in Afghanistan are monitored. This would appear to me to be a military operation, and not a policing one.

I think it would be appropriate to make a corrolary here: if the United States found out during World War II that Adolph Hitler was making telephone calls into the United States, would surveillance of these calls require a court order? What if there was no evidence the person in American that Hitler was calling was doing anything wrong? Could they still monitor those calls? What if these calls provided no information about troop movements, but rather gave insight into Hitler's personality? Would this tapping have been appropriate, and would it have been necessary to get a court order?

This is the crux of our current debate. From what I understand of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), it is intended to be used as a police tool against domestic actors, not for the purposes of intelligence.

However, neither the media, the administration, nor the Democrats will allow this debate to occur. We are to believe that either this is an unacceptable intrusion on our privacy, that the President has unlimited power to do what he believes is necessary (the philospher king), or that this is an unprecedented violation of our liberties.

None of these could be furhter from the truth.