Matt Yglesias

New Developments in Harman Wiretap Case

The fact that Jane Harman wound up on a wiretap was always a bit, shall we say, odd and disturbing. And Laura Rozen paints a picture wherein it definitely looks abusive—Porter Goss screwing around perhaps in order to protect his corrupt subordinates.

Whatever the case may ultimately prove to be, I think this demonstrates what should long have been obvious, namely that broad surveillance powers are incredibly likely to be used for abusive domestic political purposes. Obviously, there are potential tactical national security gains to be made by letting the NSA and FBI just do whatever they want. But in a strategic sense, what happens when you allow secret unrestrained surveillance power is that harmful abuses wind up swamping legitimate uses of the authority. Unfortunately, back when debates where taking place about illegal surveillance, it was only the hippie bloggers making this point. All Republicans and all “responsible” Democrats like Jane Harman understood that anyone worrying about abuse needs to put a tinfoil hat on.

Now that it looks like Harman has been the target of abuse, I’m hoping she’ll lead a campaign for the sort of broad reforms that can help ensure this doesn’t happen again. But I fear she’ll lead a narrow campaign aimed at simply sending the message “don’t f**k with Jane Harman.”

Meet The New Boss

The Obama administration seems just as determined as the Bush administration was to making sure that nobody has any legal recourse if they’ve been subject to illegal surveillance. The process is getting pretty Kafkaesque here; the basic shape of things is that you can’t sue the government over secret illegal surveillance because since the surveillance happened in secret, you can’t prove it happened. And you can’t get the documents that might prove it happened, because that would compromise the secrecy.

Personally, I don’t see any way that could wind up leading to abuses.

Surveillance

Via Steve Benen, I’m shocked to learn that police surveillance power is sometimes abused:

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a “security threat” because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

See, I’d been soundly informed by everyone in the conservative movement plus many leading Democratic Party politicians and all manner of sensible centrists that allowing unlimited government surveillance power is the only reasonable response to terrorism. Obviously, anyone raising concerns about this sort of thing just doesn’t understand that it would be bad if there were to be a successful terrorist attack. And folks concerned about abuse of this kind of power clearly belong to some kind of tinfoil hat cult. Or something.

It seems Amnesty International was among the targeted groups, perhaps out of an impish sense of irony.

Thomas Tamm

The Bush administration and the congress have seen to it that nobody who broke the law and conducted illegal, secret surveillance of Americans will be punished for it. But Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower who brought the illegal activity to public attention, is still being hounded by the FBI.

That’s via Hilzoy.