empty rhetoric

News today that the infamous NSA domestic surveillance program was part of a larger strategy to fight domestic terrorism disrupt considerably much of the progressive narrative surrounding the controversy. Contrary to the notion that George W. Bush is “assaulting civil liberties” or seeking to expand the power of the Executive beyond its Constitutional limits, the program, it turns out, is part of a broad strategy to improve surveillance on, and consequently understand better the actions of militants within the borders of the United States– a conclusion that supporters of the program have long made a cornerstone of their arguments in favor of the program.

The revelation also has broad implications for the Alberto Gonzales affair, which until this point has been focused on the intricate minutia surrounding how the program was implemented– specifically, whether or not Gonzales’ bumbling testimony misrepresented how the program was implemented. This account would seem to back up his account of what happened, specifically what objections were raised and when:

McConnell’s letter was aimed at defending Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales from allegations by Democrats that he may have committed perjury by telling Congress that no legal objections were raised about the TSP. Gonzales said a legal fight in early 2004 was focused on “other intelligence activities” than those confirmed by Bush, but he never connected those to Bush’s executive order.

But in doing so, McConnell’s letter also underscored that the full scope of the NSA’s surveillance program under Bush’s order has not been revealed. The TSP described by Bush and his aides allowed the interception of communication between the United States and other countries where one party is believed to be tied to al-Qaeda, so other types of communication or data are presumably being collected under the parts of the wider NSA program that remain hidden.

The crux of the problem lies in the fact that full disclosure about the specificity of the program would no doubt render it useless, thus leaving the Administration in the difficult position of being unable to defend the program on the merits. Listing in intricate detail how the program avoided becoming a broad-based attempt to monitor the conversations of a broad swath of Americans and instead focused on high-value individuals clearly engaged in terrorist activities would allow those individuals the means to escape surveillance.

In this way, criticisms of the program that are based in the notion that it is merely a tool designed to wreck civil liberties are in the particularly advantageous position of neither needing nor having a great deal of evidence. Likewise, its defenders are in the unhappy position of being wholly in the dark as to the program’s specific intent, and must appeal instead to promises by the Bush Administration that it does not violate civil liberties and instead targets known criminals.

The few things we do know about the program seem to prop-up the arguments of its supporters: a broad, non-partisan attempt to ensure Congressional oversight, a willingness by the Bush Administration to essentially handicap the program in order to ensure FISA compliance, and numerous attempts to place restrictions on who is eligible to be spied upon. This, alongside today’s news that the ultimate strategy had its roots in attempts to ensure that another 9/11 would be impossible seem to me to be quite irrefutable, at least insofar as the motives of the Bush Administration are concerned.

Today’s news is being embraced by progressives and democrats alike (including the 9/11 “truth” movement) as evidence that the program was conceived as some dark conspiracy against the American people. Interestingly enough, its disclosure seems to contradict that position inasmuch as it represents a move by the Bush Administration to release until now undisclosed information about it as a means of justifying Gonzales’ account. Such a maneuver only makes sense if the program was conceived under the auspices that the government claims rather than the sinister mechanics suggested by much of the progressive movement. As such, this disclosure represents some of the best evidence that the program was targeted specifically at terrorists– not the American public at large.

It is a striking example of how unsupported the progressive narrative is, and just how much question-begging occurs amongst its adherents. Bush is evil because, well, Bush is evil– and when Bush reveals details about a surveillance program in a way that clearly defines its intent, we are left with the rather circular argument that the program is evil because the program is evil. There is no evidence that the program is evil beyond this simple-minded tautology, which finds its merit in the gospel of progressivism: the vilification of one’s opponents, specifically George W. Bush.

What is particularly troubling about this is the fact that it has begun to show up in the high echelons of government, including Congress itself. Much of the case against Alberto Gonzales is founded in precisely this sort of reasoning, which begins from the assumption that the program itself violated federal law. If it did not, there is little need for an investigation into Gonzales’ role in its authorization beyond possible malfeasance on his part vis a vis John Ashcroft, who once held the position of enemy no. 1 in the minds of progressives, but who now plays the role of incapacitated victim at the hands of Gonzales’ sinister manipulations. That the Democratic leadership seems unable to find something to charge Gonzales with illustrates just how much of a political show-trial this “investigation” has become.