Stuart Taylor: Obama Should Conduct Illegal Surveillance
A pretty stunning Stuart Taylor column in the National Journal:
Civil libertarians are rightly outraged by the brutality of some Bush administration interrogation methods; by Bush’s denial of fair hearings to hundreds of suspects at Guantanamo and elsewhere who claim that they are not terrorists; and by his years of secretly and perhaps illegally defying — rather than asking Congress to amend — the badly outdated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
But the civil libertarians’ outrage does not stop there. Indeed, the prospect of anyone in the U.S. being inappropriately wiretapped, surveilled, or data-mined seems to stir the viscera of many Bush critics more than the prospect of thousands of people being murdered by terrorists. This despite the paucity of evidence that any innocent person anywhere has been seriously harmed in recent decades by governmental abuse of wiretapping, surveillance, or data mining.
On these and similar issues, Obama will have a choice: He can give the Left what it wants and weaken our defenses. Or he can follow the advice of his more prudent advisers, recognize that Congress, the courts, and officials including Attorney General Michael Mukasey have already moved to end the worst Bush administration abuses — and kick the hard Left gently in the teeth. I’m betting that Obama is smart and tough enough to do the latter.
Kicking the term “Bush critics” around is a huge red herring in this context. Bush is going to be out of office on January 20th. If anyone conducts illegal (or “inappropriate” to use Taylor’s newspeak term) surveillance of anyone, it’s going to be Barack Obama. Similarly, nonsensical talk of giving “the hard Left” a gentle kick in the teeth is neither here nor there. For years now the sensible center has engaged in the weird conceit that dislike of illegal violations of Americans’ constitutional liberties is some kind of odd symptom of possessing unduly vocifierous dislike of George W. Bush. But the issue, of course, extends far beyond Bush. The issue is whether or not we’re going to have meaningful limits on the power of the federal executive to conduct surveillance. Taylor thinks we should be so petrified of the risk of terrorist attack that we say “no.” After all, being illegally wiretapped never killed anybody.
I, for one, don’t want to live in that country. We already saw in the middle of the twentieth century where unlimited surveillance power leads — to massive politically motivated abuse. And of course it’s true that nothing J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon ever did with their unlimited surveillance power ever “seriously harmed” anybody in the way that being killed by a terrorist harms you. But it still wasn’t a good idea to let them do that. American democracy can — and in fact has — survived a large-scale terrorist attack. But it can’t survive if the threat of terrorism is taken to mean that there should be no meaningful restrain on executive power.
73 Responses to “Stuart Taylor: Obama Should Conduct Illegal Surveillance”
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December 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Not too stunning coming from Stuart Taylor — he’s a consistent opponent of the Bill of Rights.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Stuart Taylor is one of those people who crapped themselves in fear on 9/11 and continued to crap themselves in fear for a year or two afterward. They were scared on a level they never thought they could be and completely lost it, just wanting a big daddy to protect them from the boogeymen. That wouldn’t be so terrible, except after they calmed down they couldn’t admit to themselves or to anyone else how much they freaked out. So they justify their frightened panic by magnifying the threat facing America beyond all possible proportion and attack anyone who challenges their comfortable dellusion.
Mike
December 5th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I’ve never heard of Stuart Taylor before, and frankly hope never to hear about him again. Clearly, the guy is not an American. Because Americans don’t like the government snooping into their business. He must be French or something.
Here’s a reminder for him: the Oath of Office for the President:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
You’ll note it does not mention sniffing the underwear of US citizens, nor protecting his weak, limp ass from every crazy towelhead.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Taking away any number of Constitutional or civil rights might not ’seriously harm’ anyone.
On the other hand, had the ‘hard left’ been in office for 8 months in 2001, we might have read a f***ing memo on who was planning to attack us, and had meetings on this sh*t, but no, no, it was all the fault of the f***ing wimps who don’t like torture and phone tapping and sh*t.
A**holes.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:35 am
And of course it’s true that nothing J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon ever did with their unlimited surveillance power ever “seriously harmed” anybody in the way that being killed by a terrorist harms you.
Even this isn’t true. They pretty much hounded Jean Seberg to her death, and I’d be willing to bet that’s not the only case.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:35 am
You know, let’s face it: Allowing the police to enter our homes and conduct searches anytime they like wouldn’t “seriously harm” anyone, right? As long as they do it politely, of course. Ditto for listening in on all of our phone calls and reading all of our emails. Why not? If you’re not guilty, what have you got to fear? And surely it would save lives even if we only caught one terrorist. Pretty clear risk/reward balance to me!
Piss-in-their-pants cowards like Taylor really deserve to be shipped off to somewhere like Myanmar where they are more than happy to accomodate him.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Here’s a non-Wikipedia source. Note that Seberg’s child was stillborn and her husband at the time committed suicide a year after she did.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:40 am
How sure are we that J E Hoover era illegal surveillance never harmed anyone in a real physical way? Not to go all tinfoil hat here, but there seems to here, but there was kind of a suspicious spike in assasinations of progressive leaders during that era.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:43 am
He doesn’t get how much harder it is for Obama to spy illegally, even apart from convictions or from his having taught law school. It’d be cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on someone who hasn’t broken the law. After all, he’d have to listen in on actual enemies of the United States, meaning people like the Bush administration and Taylor. It’s hard enough even reading Taylor’s column or NRO without throwing up.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:45 am
If you favor continued domestic surveillance, you argue that policy on the merits. But the most forceful phrase of this excerpt – “kicking the left in the teeth” – is entirely exogenous to the argument (how different would the tone of the writing be if Taylor had said “on balance, I would side against the strict opponents of domestic surveillance” and left it at that).
Taylor’s writing exposes the psychology of impotence. That’s where I believe the irrelevent sadism comes in.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:46 am
I’m all for Obama announcing widespread terrorist surveillance measures. I think he should go further and name the people he’s going to permanently wiretap.
1) Stuart Taylor
2) All Republicans in Congress
etc.
Then we’ll see what Stuart Taylor believes is right and reasonable…
December 5th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I was actually thinking about this just this morning. I now want Obama to DELIBERATELY abuse the power and target partisans like this donkey with the surveillance powers. And I want them to be aware of it. So I agree with Meh.
Maybe that way in the future when we get another authoritarian Republican running the country (we will) these powerf#ckers will think twice about vesting illegal, unchecked and dangerous power in the hands of one man.
They will be crying and moaning about “abuse of power” before Obama’s rear end even hits the seat of the chair in the Oval Office.
Maybe none of it matters since the rightwing is so completely irrelevant and will continue to be until they start looking in the mirror.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:13 am
For the record, unlike the opportunistic rightwing whose opinions are only tethered to what grants them political advantage and power, I am STILL 100% against warrantless, unsupervised and unaccountable domestic surveillance.
Thus I am NOT simply the other side of the same coin.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I read the whole column. The modus operandi is to construct a false choice between extreme alternatives. Yawn. We should be teaching people to get beyond this way of thinking in Freshman comp.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:17 am
People who actually know what they are talking about on the subject of intelligence gathering all say: If you are trying to find a needle in a haystack, making the haystack bigger isn’t the best approach. Duh.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:23 am
I first became aware of Stuart Taylor during Lewinsky-o-rama. I would call him lower than pond scum were it not for the fact that I have considerably more respect for pond scum than I do a creep like this.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Who cares what some douche writing in the National Journal thinks?
December 5th, 2008 at 11:26 am
We already saw in the middle of the twentieth century where unlimited surveillance power leads — to massive politically motivated abuse.
I’m not at all sure we haven’t seen it in this century. We already know about spying on peace groups. Whatcha wanna bet there’s more?
December 5th, 2008 at 11:38 am
In my dreams, on Valentine’s Day 2009, Obama publishes on the web 24 hours of telephone conversations of every single person who advocates warrantless wiretapping.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:42 am
1) Why doesn’t anyone point out that the right consists of two-faced hypocrites?
2) Anyone remember federal law enforcement officers being denounced by the NRA as “jackbooted federal thugs” during the Clinton administration simply for enforcing a warrent issued by a judge at Waco?
3) Anyone remember the argument that 10,000 deaths per year is the price of “Vote Freedom First”? That if the Second Amendment is not supported, a disarmed America would be put under a dictatorship sometime in the distant future?
4) Tell NRA’s Wayne LaPierre that if he wants to be admitted into the Capitol Building, he has to first arrange for some NRA members to beat the living shit out of Stuart Taylor.
Just to show that ole Wayne’s serious about this “protecting the Bill of Rights” stuff.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:45 am
In addition to the points made and examples given by previous commenters, there’s also the possibility (IMHO, likelihood) that some violent dissident actions occurred at the behest of agents provocateurs.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am
And of course it’s true that nothing J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon ever did with their unlimited surveillance power ever “seriously harmed” anybody in the way that being killed by a terrorist harms you.”
They had Fred Hampton shot in the back while he was sleeping. I doubt this is the only case, but we can’t really know about all of those hurt under COINTELPRO because it’s mostly classified — for a reason.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Let’s not forget that his National Journal put out the bogus stat claiming Obama was the most liberal Senator in 2007.
Americans for Democratic Action, which has been making Congressional scorecards longer than most organizations AFAICT, gave Obama a 75% “liberal quotient” in 2007, nowhere near the “most liberal”.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:55 am
And of course it’s true that nothing J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon ever did with their unlimited surveillance power ever “seriously harmed” anybody in the way that being killed by a terrorist harms you.
Even this isn’t true.
Yeah, no kidding. Leaving aside 1. the individuals whose personal lives were destroyed and 2. violence committed by provocateurs, there’s the massive institutional barrier to progressive politics, way beyond the failure of this or that liberal to get elected. In the 1930s and 1940s there was real trend in this country to unionization, agricultural reform, racial toleration, and so on that amounted to a major shift in the distribution of power and wealth. The whole Hoover/Nixon axis of federal power was aimed at holding back the tide, and they succeeded to a great extent.
It was unconstitutional, it was anti-democratic, it was certainly evil, and it “seriously harmed” vast numbers of people.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:59 am
It’s amazing. Those of us who favor maintaining American’s traditional and legal cicil rights are looked on as unserious, somehow. Even tho we are willing to put our butts on the line for what we believe. We are willing to make the choice, and live with the consequences of the choice.
The Stuart Taylors of the world, on the other hand, are completely phony. They are neither willing to do the things they advocate, and bear the consequences, nor are they willing to be the subjects of these policies, but they are somehow serious, worthy of consideration.
The situation is so ridiculous I can’t adequately explicate it.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
So Stuart Taylor has two points here:
1) “Defying” a law is “perhaps illegal.”
2) It’s “right” to be outraged about the government’s actions over the past eight years. It goes too far to actually try to get them to stop it.
How does this guy tie his shoes in the morning?
December 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
On the other hand it would be sort of cool if Obama used the expanded powers he inherited from Bush to spy on the domestic terrorist organization called the Republican Party. Seems like they’re a bigger threat to our nation than Al Quaeda. Just a thought
December 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Americans will have all of their electronic communications surveilled under Obama, just like they did under Clinton, regardless of what Stuart Taylor thinks or says.
This game of inventing non-existant Obama positions and policies to defend really is getting ridiculous. He’s proposed shutting down the NSA just as many times as the CDC. Not once.
So can we now move on to talking about how he will eliminate malaria with absolutely nothing to suggest that and quite a long history guaranteeing that he won’t ?
December 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I hate to say it… but we already live in that country. We’re already down that path, and there’s only so far it will be pulled back. Far more likely is that it will continue to be pushed further. Perhaps on a small scale in Dem administrations, then greatly in Repub admins. But what happened in India and the fear of it happening here is only going to make the push greater. Every few years there will be another “example” like that: 9/11, Madrid, London, Mumbai, etc.
Do I like it?
Not at all.
Do I agree with it?
No.
We can all try to fight it and slow it down. But we also need to be realistic that we’re not getting back to where we were in the past on privacy and freedom. Worse, we won’t for long be where we are *now*. Losing the FISA battles is just the clearest shot across the bow of what the “reasonable leaders” of our country will do even when there is no need to. We already knew what unreasonable people like Cheney & Co. would do.
Is it depressing? Sure. :/
John
December 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
It seems the important information missing from this entire discussion is an accurate disclosure of the number of “terrorist attacks” which have been prevented by the Bushie’s mangling of the Constitution. Now, I’m not asking for any specifics such as where, when and degree of danger to the public. But I would like a senior government official to make a statement like, “As a result of our illegal wiretapping, survelance and data mining, we were able to uncover XXX number of terrorist plots over the course of seven years.” Nothing specific, but it would cast a real light on what we’re getting for our venture into government criminality.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I expect Obama to continue most of Bush’s surveillance policies, and I expect many liberals to defend him. I hope Matt won’t be one, and I’m optimistically going to take this post as a good sign.
Just to pile on:
“And of course it’s true that nothing J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon ever did with their unlimited surveillance power ever “seriously harmed” anybody in the way that being killed by a terrorist harms you.”
I was going to cite Fred Hampton too. But there were also less physical ways surveillance information was used to kill – the forging of information that implicated people as informants along with the use of agent provocateurs in order to foment internal violence and splits, among the Black Panthers, AIM, and other groups.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I’m pretty goddamned tired of these douchebags who consider the Constitution a suggestion. You would think they are intelligent enough to realize that if we listen to their ideas about when we should merely brush it aside, it pretty much opens the gates to anyone who is in power to merely brush it aside because it is inconvenient.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Kalkin, you are wrong, twice. First of all Obama was a constitutional law professor. Unlike most politicians I am pretty sure he takes the Constitution a lot more seriously than his predecessor.
Secondly, liberals will raise holy hell with him if he continues these hated Bush policies. We may love him but we are not blindly in love, like Bush lovers are and have been.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Here’s a little primer for Mr. taylor and the rest:
Farting in Church = “inappropriate”
Violating FISA and the Constitution = “illegal”
Your welcome.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Uh, “You’re Welcome”.
Sorry
December 5th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
In faitness to Taylor, he said that nobody was ever harmed by SURVEILLANCE to the degree a terrorist causes harm. He didn’t say covert government action per se (including assassinations, etc.) is intrinsically less harmful than terrorist activity.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
But — the Dark Ages!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Even this isn’t true. They pretty much hounded Jean Seberg to her death, and I’d be willing to bet that’s not the only case.
Perhaps we should make Seberg an emblem of the movement to end illegal surveillance and convince people that doing so would mean more people who like Jean Seberg. Because, yowza.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/7/19/105134/542
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/12/5/14948/3885
Matt Yglesias is “stunned” by Stuart Taylor, who writes:
Obama will have a choice: He can give the Left what it wants and weaken our defenses. Or he can follow the advice of his more prudent advisers, recognize that Congress, the courts, and officials including Attorney General Michael Mukasey have already moved to end the worst Bush administration abuses — and kick the hard Left gently in the teeth. I’m betting that Obama is smart and tough enough to do the latter.
The advisor to watch on this is Cass Sunstein, who is no doubt advising Obama to do precisely what Taylor wants. Yglesias is “stunned” to read this from Taylor – I have no idea why, Taylor has always defended Bush abuses. Will he be stunned to learn that Obama advisor Sunstein has defended Bush abuses too?
Speaking for me only
Some folks are beginning to notice that Cass Sunstein is no defender of the rule of law. Via Glenn Greenwald, Ari Melber writes:
Cass Sunstein, an adviser to Barack Obama from the University of Chicago Law School, cautioned against prosecuting criminal conduct from the current Administration. Prosecuting government officials risks a “cycle” of criminalizing public service, he argued, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts like the impeachment of President Clinton–or even the “slight appearance” of it.
What people do not realize is Cass Sunstein has been defending the Bush Administration’s illegal actions and the Bush Administration’s preposterous claims for many many years now. This is who he is. I think that any connection he has to Barack Obama is extremely troubling.
By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only
December 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Very few people got blown up by terrorists under the old Soviet system. So Stuart is right, a surveillance state CAN protect us. Better red than dead! Bring on the police state now!
December 5th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
My prediction: Obama will eavesdrop on lots of people. When this is eventually revealed, Matt will come up with a highly logical distinction explaining the difference between Obama’s good eavesdropping and Bush’s bad eavesdropping.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Typically, people who think like Stuart Taylor hate the person first, usually simply for being a Democrat, or because they think the person is on the opposing side of a political or moral issue (which, to be fair, is sometimes a legitimate political issue). Then, these same people treat nearly anything the person does only as a reason to hate the person even more. Obama could mimic Bush, clone everyone in the Bush Administration, and continue its same mix of incompetence, foolishness and malice, and these people would still hate Obama, even though they may claim that it’s because of what Obama is doing and not because Obama simply exists, they think, in opposition to them (leaving aside for now those who truly simply hate Obama’s existence, period). Often we find a lack of empathy amongst such people.
Most people who have hated Bush, however (as many here know firsthand!), have seen what he’s done, hated that and have then hated Bush. I guess it’s also difficult to understand for Bush supporters that the people who are evidence-first have really tried to find reason to give Bush credit for anything but have come up wanting.
It should be no surprise, then, that Taylor thinks that the Bush hatred comes first, and therefore the latest reason for expressing hatred of Bush must be because of the hatred and not Bush’s act.
Unconscious projection, pure and simple.
What most of us want is for these people who hate first to start elevating the discourse, but hopefully more of us are realizing that it’s sometimes more useful and sane for us to drop a mirror in front of them and walk away.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
My prediction: Obama will eavesdrop on lots of people. When this is eventually revealed, Matt will come up with a highly logical distinction explaining the difference between Obama’s good eavesdropping and Bush’s bad eavesdropping.
MY prediction: conservatives will continue to conflate “eavesdropping” with “illegal eavesdropping,” therefore arguing that anyone who opposes the latter must oppose the former in all circumstances and regardless of whether proper procedures are followed.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Actually, farting in church is entirely appropriate. Violating the Constitution and treating it like a bunch of optional “hard left” nonsense is simply unAmerican.
But on those rare occasions when I get corralled into a church, I try to fart as often and as pungently as possible.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I enjoy his comment on the “paucity of evidence.” Exactly how would we know whether anyone has been harmed or not, given that the Bush administration has successfully stonewalled efforts to know what they’re up to?
December 5th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I, for one, don’t want to live in that country.
And the sensible citizens of the American Republic would prefer that you live in some other country as well.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
how about Hoover and his racist minions wiretapping Martin Luther King and his associates and doing everything they could to kneecap the civil rights movement? Hoover’s communists-under-every-bed paranoia justified rampant, unconstitutional abuses and resulted in real-life hardship and suffering and death for blacks and civil rights activists. How about that for cause and effect?
December 5th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I’m not sure that no one was ever hurt or killed by unwarranted surveillance. Case in point: Martin Luther King’s suspicious assassination was perhaps the culmination of a J. Edgar Hoover vendetta in which Hoover obtained information on King through unwarranted surveillance.
And what of civil rights workers and black Americans who were murdered, possibly because Hoover effectively blackmailed John F. Kennedy and thus limited federal protections Kennedy would otherwise have extended to civil rights advocates and Southern blacks in general?
And what of the intimidation President Nixon imposed upon Viet Nam critics? The infamous “FBI files” that were rumored (and later proved to be true) on Viet Nam War crtics certainly gave pause to war critics. Would the war have ended earlier if middle-class, adult opponents felt freer to criticize and protest it? Very likely. Here again, covert activities (some of which were unlawful) led to the deaths of Americans and Vietnamese.
You can probably think of other examples.
I think unwarranted wiretaps & other unlawful forms of information-gathering have had both direct and indirect lethal consequences for law-abiding, patriotic Americans.
The point is, Constitutional protections save lives.
Stuart Taylor is a very smart man. But he has friends in high places in the Bush Administration, and he has been writing as if he were their defense attorney (he has a Harvard law degree) in column after column both in the National Journal & in Newsweek. Everything he writes on Bush policy should be read as a lawyerly defense of indefensible acts.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
December 5th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Stuart Taylor is an asshat.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Mr. Yglesias,
That’s idiotic. The difference between then and now is that the U.S. government was wrong on the merits (at least when it came to the civil rights movement, the movement against the Vietnam War, socialist movements, etc.). And even if you disagree with the ideology of, say, SDS or the Socialist Workers’ Party, they neither posed a serious imminent danger of overthrowing the government, nor were they threatening to carry out mass killings of civilians. The U.S. in the 1960s wasn’t Germany or Italy, where ultra-left groups were both more powerful and more violent. Bringing up Bill Ayers and the Weathermen is just the exception that proves the rule- how marginal were the Weathermen? (And the US government probably had a legitimate case for wiretapping the Weathermen).
Islamic Jihadists, on the other hand, do pose an imminent danger to the lives of US civilians, as was proven on September 11th. They aren’t analogous to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mark Rudd, Fred Hampton or Paul Sweezy. If anything, they’re analogous to the Khmer Rouge, if we had had a homegrown Khmer Rouge in the 1960s. There’s no “democracy” I can think of that has fought serious insurgencies by Marquess of Queensberry rules.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Saying that one is against listening-in on suspected bad actors because one would quite a warrant therefor is like saying that one is in favour of crime because one insists on trials’ preceding punishments.
The request for an absence of a check on the part of one possessing power should be taken as evidence of ill intent—’Evil hateth the light,’ as Jubal Harshaw quoted, and one form of that light is oversight.
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