A Stitch in Haste

Even by Bush Administration standards, this is way too Orwellian:

A White House privacy board has determined that two of the Bush administration's controversial surveillance programs — electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking — do not violate citizens' civil liberties.
...
After several classified briefings, the board was reassured by the eavesdropping program's "multiple layers of checks and balances and accountability," [Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House counsel and the lone Democrat on the panel] said. "The people running the program themselves are very well-trained and identified bright lines."
...
The board does not have subpoena power, and the White House can check its annual reports to Congress. The members serve at the pleasure of Bush, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has final say over whether officials must comply with the board's recommendations.

Two hasty stitches:

--If a partisan, powerless "privacy board" can be given enough access to the super-secret details of the NSA warrantless wiretapping program, then why can't a court? Why does the Administration continue to insist that the "state secrets doctrine" precludes judicial oversight, or at best allows one (advisory) court to review the program — once and only once — independent of any actual litigation?

--Does the Administration continue to pretend that the issue is simply "privacy" and not "legality"? Just because a program purportedly "respects privacy sufficiently" does not make it legal. This absurd "privacy board" puts the cart before the horse.

For example, the whole country might unanimously agree that the line-item veto is a great idea, but it's still unconstitutional unless and until the Presentment Clause is amended. Similarly, no mere majority, no matter how lopsided, can enable the criminalization of flag-burning without changing the Constitution — the First Amendment does not read polling data.

The same with warrantless wiretapping: neither the government nor its apologists get to "skip" the question of "Is it legal?" and jump straight to "Is it safe?" or "Is it wise?" This gaggle of impotent rubber-stampers should have been disbanded — or at least gagged — until the judicial review process (such as it is) was allowed to take its course. Their pronouncement that the program is hunky-dory is both prejudicial and propagandistic.

More thoughts from 27B Stroke 6.