I Spy With My Eye...

...A major scandal that isn't going away anytime soon.

The AOL poll still shows 76% bothered by this. Washington Post says differently, though.

All in all, the President's assurances that privacy is "fiercely protected" is convincing few.

I've already given my detailed thoughts on this here and here. Now the fallout.

First, this is understandably complicating the Gen. Hayden's nomination to the CIA.

Also, one issue for the Bush defenders- and I can't wait to read the NY Post editoral page tomorrow- to ponder (as they rush around to insist any critics of the program simply don't understand the war on terror) [UPDATE- The NY Post editorial has arrived: 'This Week's Treason'!! Yikes guys, stop letting Malkin write your editorials, ok?] ... Why does the Republican Congress apparently hate America?-

Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country...

...The Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel in pursuit of what had transpired.

"We're really flying blind on the subject and that's not a good way to approach the Fourth Amendment and the constitutional issues involving privacy," Specter said of domestic surveillance in general...

Many people have immediately praised this. Me? I think it's an important step, but I'm skeptical. Sen. Specter is notoriously all bark and little bite. Every week, when the latest constitutional crisis emerges from the White House, Specter vows he will investigate and put a stop to it. We're still waiting for most of those investigations. I believe he is sincere about calling in the phone company execs for hearings, but will he allow them to testify without being sworn in, as he did for Attorney General Gonzales in February? Bottom line, if Arlen Specter is the best check we have on the White House's power, don't hold your breath for any change.

And here's more concern from GOP terrorist sympathizers.

"I don't know enough about the details except that I am willing to find out because I'm not sure why it would be necessary to keep and have that kind of information," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Channel: "The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?"

Crooks and Liars also reports that Newt Gingrich called it "indefensible" on Fox tonight and Joe Scarborough also was critical on MSNBC. This is bad news for the White House, who likely wanted to paint opponents of the datamining activities as soft on terror. That's just getting harder to sell. The bottom line is that we all want an aggressive war on terror, and we all understand that we have to be thorough in our surveillance, but there are laws to be followed which only in Dick Cheney's mind make it harder for us to do those things. Ignoring the issue of whether or not this is all even helping, I doubt most Americans trust President Bush and the NSA to go all Big Brother on us... but do it the 'right' way. Combined with other news of their extra-constitutional behavior, trust is hardly an option.

I'm obviously less than convinced that the NSA having secret access to millions of phone records is the key to us defeating the Al Qaeda terror network.

Meanwhile, Digby reminds us that, immediately after 9/11, the Justice Department had a controversial devotion to privacy rights over terrorism concerns when it came to the records of gun owners. Just a reminder for the "9/11 changed everything" folks that some things didn't change.

Democrats are, of course, united against this activity. Sen. Durbin stated "We need to take this seriously, more seriously than some other matters that might come before the committee because our privacy as American citizens is at stake." Elsewhere, Sen. Leahy asked, "Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with Al Qaeda?". Definitely a case where bipartisan outrage is needed.

Finally, 72 members of the House have filed court papers challenging the President's warrantless wiretapping program and seeking to end it. The participating Representatives were 71 Democrats and one Independent. This action was taken before the USA Today revelations on the domestic data collection and is likely to gain support now.

Atrios makes a a good point on why this story is resonating now specifically-

I think this story will resonate more than the earlier warrantless wiretapping story because on that latter one the administration was more able to convince people that of course THEY wouldn't be impacted, just that bad people would be. People were more bugged by that story than our media would generally let on, but they didn't rise in outrage...

...But big TelCo handing over all your phone records to George Bush? Everyone knows they're getting monitored too.

Still, the real issue is that the president believes he is bound by no law. Until people accept that truth, which they've been quite vocal about, this will largely just be a dance.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that President Bush is at 29% in the polls? Yes- 29%.

And I thought it was easy being the King.



"What, me spy?"
--President George W. Newman (May 11, 2006)

[PS- The first newspaper editorials are coming in:
-Washington Post: An Easy Call: Lying
-Chicago Tribune: The NSA has your number
-NY Time: Ever-Expanding Secret
-Boston Herald: What would Ma Bell do?]