Analysis: Senate acts wisely on Hayden

The U.S. Senate has given the Bush administration an extended blank check on domestic electronic phone surveillance.

Quoth Will Ferrell: “Fantastic!”

As we predicted in these columns last week, the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings on General Michael Hayden focused on data mining from U.S. domestic phone records during his tenure as head of the National Security Agency. But at no point did senators make any serious suggestion about imposing any new legal or congressional oversight procedures on the vastly extended surveillance programs that Hayden oversaw during his time running the super-secret NSA.

It doesn’t matter whether they did or did not do anything to restrain the NSA’s surveillance. It’s still a malevolent beast—and it’s illegal.

The senators, as we predicted, focused narrowly on Hayden’s record, and his performance before them defused, at least in the short term, many of the concerns that had been expressed on Capitol Hill about the long-term implications and dangers of the data-mining program.

This proves that they never had any intent on restricting the NSA, and they have no intent to ever do such.

The course of these hearings reveals several significant findings about current U.S. popular attitudes, as interpreted by the nation’s elected representatives, on national security issues.

First, despite President George W. Bush’s tumbling approval ratings over the economy, national security and the war in Iraq, domestic surveillance powers remain the third rail of American politics. No one in the Republican or Democratic Party mainstreams wants to risk touching them for fear of getting electrocuted.

In other words: “Neither major party is talking about it, so why should you—the bourgeoisie—talk about it?”

In the short term, this has spared Bush yet more embarrassments. USA Today’s report exposing the previously unsuspected extent of the NSA’s data mining program on national phone records was discussed throughout the media and led to much initial criticism of the administration from Republican as well as Democratic senators. But it did not translate into any serious effort to insist that the programs be curtailed, or even that they should have congressional oversight procedures imposed upon them to prevent their abuse.

A petrifying mindset has taken hold in the United States over the last few years: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” This belief, however, would not be held were it not for indoctrination. Over the last 50 years, the government has conditioned the people to trust it via public schooling, welfare, etc. The people have bought into the lie that the government is this benevolent giant whose only interest is the safety of the little people scurrying about his feet. Due to the fuzzy feeling in their hearts, the people don’t question the giant when it asks to monitor one aspect of their lives, and then another, and another.

For as we noted in these columns last week, major figures in neither party want to take the risk of exposing themselves to future criticism for reining in security surveillance programs in case they may be blamed at some point in the future for blocking the programs that could have prevented future mega-terrorist attacks as bad as, or worse than, those of September 11, 2001. In this very basic sense, therefore, the traumas of September 11, 2001, continue to be the driving force of American politics.

Hitler firebombed the Reichstag.

Second, the revelations about the NSA data mining do not seem to have significantly further damaged Bush’s opinion poll ratings, although since they were already in the low 30 percent range, they were already in the dog house. However much his credibility on Iraq has been destroyed, the American public still approves the general principle of empowering the U.S. domestic security services and intelligence agencies against potential terrorist threats.

The pollsters must be searching harder and harder for good patriotic Americans who have absolute trust, love, and loyalty for the Federal government. Perhaps people are waking up, or perhaps the neocons are angry that Bush hasn’t been aggressive enough in growing the government.

Third—this is not particularly good news for Bush, however—because recent polling data suggests that key centrist areas of American public opinion have already crossed the crucial barrier of trusting Bush to protect them against domestic and other national security threats better than anyone else. The public still wants any president to have those powers. But a clear majority of it no longer requires Bush above other political figures to exercise them.

This polling data UPI speaks of, is it that one poll of 500 Americans? After all, we know that 500 hand-picked Americans accurately depict how the entire country feels.

The American public continues to support giving the U.S. intelligence community wide-ranging powers of domestic surveillance to prevent another mega-terrorist attack like those of September 11, 2001. And they also believe—almost certainly with good reason—that the exercise of these powers has significantly protected them since those earlier attacks. But they also believe that these additional surveillance powers can and will be exercised by future presidents, either Democratic or Republican, at least as well as, if not better than, has been done by Bush.

As I stated above, the American people have bought into the notion of a benevolent government when it is, in reality, a malevolent leviathan. Because they believe the government has only the people’s best interests at heart, they also believe that surveillance is for their good and will protect them.

I hereby coin a new exclamation: “Reichstag!”

Fourth, the senators tacitly expressed their continuing confidence in Gen. Hayden by not using their cross-examination of him about the surveillance powers as a reason to block his nomination to be the next director of the CIA.

Yes, because we wouldn’t want the nominee for CIA director to be denied the position because he did anything illegal.

In an ideal world, the Senate would have approved Gen. Hayden’s nomination, agreed that the increased surveillance powers were necessary to combat the threats the United States still faced and also approved new oversight programs to make sure those surveillance powers were not abused. Two out of three wasn’t a bad start.

In an ideal world, the Senate would have rejected Hayden’s nomination; agreed that the increased surveillance powers were illegal and unnecessary; and made it clear that any attempts of the Executive to create new surveillance programs would be met with inquiries, investigations, and impeachment. Zero out of three isn’t a bad start for the neocons.

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