Ryan Singel points out even more problems with Joe Klein’s follow-up post on his train wreck of a column:
In his two follow-up blog posts, Klein compounds his errors and valiantly argues he is right that the Dems are coddling terrorists because a bill passed by the House says that if the NSA targets a foreigner or group of foreigners who will likely communicate with someone inside the United States, the spies need to get court approval.
Klein says this gives foreign terrorists the same rights as Americans.
But, this restriction is only true when the nation’s spies are wiretapping fiber optic cables, telecom switches and web mail providers INSIDE the United States.
Klein continues to miss this most crucial distinction in the debate, which is why THREAT LEVEL, paraphrasing Klein’s column, continues to believe that Klein is well beyond stupid. He’s dangerous.Outside the United States, such wiretapping isn’t even defined as surveillance and it never has been.
If the NSA is listening in on cell phone calls in Iraq, they don’t need a warrant nor do they need court approval of their techniques.
If the Iranian cell phone user they are listening in on calls an American, they don’t have to stop and get a warrant. Instead they follow long-established minimization procedures that disguise the American’s name, unless there’s a good reason not to.
Wiretapping inside America is the whole reason various bills are being debated. After a secret spying court decided last spring that the government’s wiretapping inside America without having particularized warrants was illegal, the Administration began pushing for new powers from Congress. The administration then scared Congress into rush passage of a bill that massively expanded the government’s spying powers outside and inside the United States, without any real expansion of oversight.
But Klein can’t grasp this simple point, which may be why he defends himself by saying that bills are hard to read and details are unimportant
I can write half-baked articles about subjects I don’t understand. Where’s my Time column?
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.