Republicans take on NSA

I never thought I would agree to anything the Republican party did, but they finally came up with a position I agree with as reported in The Guardian.  The Republican National Committee adopted a resolution denouncing the NSA bulk collection of phone data in the US, which they learned about thanks to Edward Snowden.  Now if they were kind enough to thank him and accord him whistleblower status, I might have to think more kindly of them, at least for a few minutes.

In its resolution, the RNC also called for a special committee to “investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying” and “hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance”. The resolution goes on to say that “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the fourth amendment of the United States constitution".  “I think that the committee's resolution this morning was about reflecting where it thinks sentiment lies,” the RNC deputy press secretary, Raffi Williams, told the Guardian.

“The Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the state secrets privilege, and the Fisa Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the internet activity, phone records and correspondence – electronic, physical, and otherwise – of any person residing in the US is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court,” the resolution says.
It also “encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs”.

No word if George W Bush and Dick Cheney will be hauled before a congressional committee.

The Dark Side

 Dick Cheney said 5 days after 9/11

"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we're going to be successful. That's the world these folks operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective." 

 He then had the Department of Justice concoct a (now repudiated) legal justification to sanction torture.  Despite the reluctance of the current Obama Administration to cooperate, the Constitution Project sponsored a bipartisan blue ribbon panel to document torture during the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations.  They took the better part of three years, interviewed hundreds of people all over the world, and documented it all in a 575 page report that is a black eye for the United States government's disregard of the rule of law for 2 decades, and continues today.

The three administrations did it all, torture - many times torturing people to death, "suspending" the Geneva Convention rules against torture whenever they pleased, kidnapping suspects and sending them to countries that tortured them, and of course we still incarcerate them at Guantanamo without charges or trial or due process.

There were the torture instigators, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, and Yoo.  There were a number of principled people who opposed them, Alberto Mora, John McCain and Nance Pelosi to name a few.  One quote from Alberto Mora, General Counsel for the Navy (Retired) in a later interview stood out,

The argument that we have to apply abuse to detainees in order to protect American lives I find to be violative of our deepest values and to the very safety of our country. We fight not only to protect lives, we fight to protect our principles.

Well said.