A Message For The Civil Liberty Hysterics

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After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans’ privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government’s electronic eavesdropping program.

The briefing for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had been delayed because President Bush was concerned—after several media leaks—about widening the circle of people who knew exact details of the secret eavesdropping program.

The board, created by Congress and appointed by Bush, focused on other classified work since it was named in spring 2005, but continued to press for a formal briefing by the National Security Agency.

A breakthrough was reached in recent days, and the five members were briefed by senior officials last week.

Board members said that they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA’s monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions, and that they wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust.

“If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we’d be more reassured,” said Lanny Davis , a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board’s lone liberal Democrat.

And let us also put to rest perhaps the most ridiculous charge of all; that the President and his people simply didn’t care about the Constitution:

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“We found there was a great appreciation inside government, both at the political and career levels, for protections on privacy and civil liberties,” said Raul, author of a book of civil liberties. “In fact, I think the public may have an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections.”

The hysteria surrounding this program might finally start receding, as long as these remarks get some significant play. After all, having a former Clinton aide wish he could reveal more about a secret program to reassure people of the good work done by it rather than to torpedo the Bush administration should raise some eyebrows among the paranoid. Former Reagan counsel Alan Raul went even further, telling John Solomon that he believes that the public underestimates the level of concern and dedication for civil liberties in the federal government.

Once again, the public’s support for a tough but necessary program has been reinforced by its careful execution by the NSA. This should not surprise anyone, as even the New York Times acknowledged that they had no information that the agency broke any laws or violated anyone’s civil rights when they broke the story. All they had were “concerns” about the program’s legality from their anonymous tipsters.

So, once again…sound and fury signifying nothing. And we’ll see the NY Times with a big headline on this assessment on page one, above the fold, right? Brian Williams will lead with this story, right? Maybe at least Jon Stewart will bring it up?

Now all of you…do you really think a little truth will get in the way of the tin foil hat wearing brigades like the ACLU and Glenn Greenwald? Paranoia is what their world is made of. The conspiracies will just have to be modified a bit. Thats all. Nothing they can’t handle with a few fancy word twists.