Conspiracy Theories

While Paul Craig Roberts pushes the envelope too far in his latest column on lewrockwell.com (most notably by making one too many references to Hitler), he perfectly dissects Bush's decision to unnecessarily violate federal wiretap law.

Bush's acts of illegal domestic spying are gratuitous because there are no valid reasons for Bush to illegally spy. The Foreign Intelligence Services Act gives Bush all the power he needs to spy on terrorist suspects. All the administration is required to do is to apply to a secret FISA court for warrants. The Act permits the administration to spy first and then apply for a warrant, should time be of the essence. The problem is that Bush has totally ignored the lawand thee court.

Why would President Bush ignore the law and the FISA court? It is certainly not because the court in its three decades of existence was uncooperative. According to attorney Martin Garbus (New York Observer, 12/28/05), the secret court has issued more warrants than all federal district judges combined, only once denying a warrant.

Why, then, has the administration created another scandal for itself on top of the WMD, torture, hurricane, and illegal detention scandals?

There are two possible reasons.

One reason is that the Bush administration is being used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement, which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power.

The other reason is that the Bush administration could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark about its activities.

What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election? Could we attribute the feebleness of the Democrats as an opposition party to information obtained through illegal spying that would subject them to blackmail?

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Attorney General John Ashcroft's top deputy, who served as acting attorney general when Ashcroft was in surgery, refused to cooperate with the White House over concerns that Bush's spying program would be abused. Bush administration officials were so anxious to begin spying without court approval without delay that they visited Ashcroft in the hospital to get him to sign off on the program.

Accounts differed as to exactly what was said at the hospital meeting between Mr. Ashcroft and the White House advisers. But some officials said that Mr. Ashcroft, like his deputy, appeared reluctant to give Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales his authorization to continue with aspects of the program in light of concerns among some senior government officials about whether the proper oversight was in place at the security agency and whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to conduct such an operation.

It is unclear whether the White House ultimately persuaded Mr. Ashcroft to give his approval to the program after the meeting or moved ahead without it.

The New York Times account of the debate within the Justice Department over the spying program, suggests that the program was not abused in 2004. This casts serious doubts on Paul Craig Robert's accusation that the program might have been used to boost Bush's reelection. On the other hand, the original program proposed by White House officials would have essentially prevented Justice Department oversight of the program, suggesting that Bush's intention was to establish a domestic spying program that even lacked internal checks and balances. Why would he need such a limitless program unless he was up to no good?