Now we learn that Faris, who pleaded guilty in October 2003 to working with al-Qaida, is prepared to sue Bush for illegally wiretapping him. The crux of his case would be that Bush's NSA policy violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a warrant from a special court before an American citizen can be wiretapped. That, at least, is his attorney's position. Other legal authorities assert that Bush is well within his constitutional authority to pursue foreign intelligence and to monitor communications without a warrant. For more on this, read "Unwarranted Complaints" in the Dec. 27 New York Times by David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey, both lawyers who served in the Justice Department in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. However the fine legal points are resolved, the current tenor of debate seems out of tune with events. In theory, I don't want to be wiretapped without due process, no matter how unlikely it is that anyone would want to know the shade of my highlights. But in practice, the task of getting scores or hundreds of warrants to wiretap terrorism suspects mid-conversation seems impossible to imprudent. More to the point, I want the government to connect all the little dots it can in order to prevent another slaughter on American soil. How rich that Bush should be treated as a criminal for trying to prevent another 9/11 attack, while a known al-Qaida terrorist could be set free on a technicality. Our decency may kill us yet. |