"All I would want to say is that everything that NSA does is lawful and very carefully done" If you take the "L" off "lawful," the word is actually "awful."
Disclosure could test Bush on key issue
National security has given boost to president since 9/11
Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief
Friday, May 12, 2006
sfgate.com
Washington -- Americans have accepted many intrusions on their civil liberties in the name of security since Sept. 11, 2001, from opening bags at baseball games to shoeless searches at airports.
And for the better part of five years, the politics of terror has served President Bush and the Republican Party well, contributing to his re-election and the party's majority in Congress.
Those inclinations will now be tested by the disclosure that the National Security Agency has been collecting data on tens of millions of Americans' phone calls.
Unlike previous revelations of domestic spying and detention programs, which were primarily aimed at a narrower population of Arab Americans or those suspected of having terrorist ties, this time it is tens of millions of Americans, including many of those reading this newspaper, whose personal calls to their husband, pizza deliveryman -- or lover -- have been duly noted in the agency's computer logs.
It also comes more than 1,500 days after tragedies at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, with memories and much of the fear blunted by time.
And perhaps most importantly, it comes at time when not even 1 in 3 Americans approves of Bush's performance as president, providing him little standing to convince them that such an infringement on their privacy is necessary to stave off another attack.
"The idea that Bush can just yell: 'national security, national security,' is increasingly a misjudgment,'' said Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton.
"The 'trust me' factor, which worked for him in 2002 and certainly 2004, is largely gone,'' Schoen said. "To believe it's going to keep working in the wake of these revelations and all his problems -- that delusory.''
In the first months after the terrorist attacks, pollster John Zogby, who is not affiliated with either party, said his surveys found Americans "remarkably willing to give up civil liberties. Across the board it was 'read my e-mail, tap my phones.' ''
But within a year, Zogby said, that willingness had subsided to pre-9/11 levels. Today, he believes that opinions about domestic spying -- like so many political issues -- is "filtered through the prism'' of how people feel about Bush, "and that's not a good prism for him right now.''
"The years of 'do anything, do everything' after 9/11 were understandable,'' said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "Those years are over.''
The disclosure Thursday about the National Security Agency's telephone data program touched off a rhetorical firestorm on Capitol Hill. Fifty-two House Democrats, including nine from Northern California, sent a letter to Bush calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate all domestic surveillance programs conducted by the security agency.
The issue seems likely to dominate the coming confirmation hearing for Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush's designee to be director of the CIA, who ran the National Security Agency when the surveillance program began.
Yet the outrage among lawmakers, which included some Republicans, does not necessarily mean the latest revelations about the National Security Agency's activities are bad politics for Bush and his party. Whether they like the surveillance policy or not, there are some who believe the development can only help an administration that finds far more strength talking about terrorists than gas prices or daily developments in Iraq.
"Most Americans think this is a good and smart way of protecting against further attacks,'' said California Republican strategist Dan Schnur, who worked for GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona during the 2000 presidential campaign. "If George Bush gets to spend the next two weeks talking about surveillance, rather than gasoline prices, I can't imagine there will be many tears shed at the White House.'' |
