Ron Demarest – 9/5/06

This page was last updated on September 5, 2006.

Protecting our rights; Ron Demarest; Beaver County Times; September 5, 2006.

This is at least the seventh letter from Mr. Demarest since August 2004 bashing President Bush, Republicans, and/or conservatives. In July 2006, Mr. Demarest wrote two letters in two weeks telling us the U.S. isn’t being fair to terrorists.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“In response to letter writers Dan Reeping and Paul Kahr, I wanted to say the vitriolic and faulty analysis of Judge Taylor’s NSA ruling coming from many sources is incredible.”

[RWC] If you’ve read Mr. Demarest’s letters, you know he has nerve referring to anyone’s “faulty analysis.”

Regarding the “faulty analysis” comment, even the liberal Washington Post acknowledged Judge Taylor’s ruling was at least partly a political rant. Here’s an excerpt from a Post editorial concerning the ruling.

“Unfortunately, the decision yesterday by a federal district court in Detroit, striking down the NSA’s program, is neither careful nor scholarly, and it is hard-hitting only in the sense that a bludgeon is hard-hitting. The angry rhetoric of U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor will no doubt grab headlines. But as a piece of judicial work -- that is, as a guide to what the law requires and how it either restrains or permits the NSA’s program -- her opinion will not be helpful.”

“Reeling [sic] says that ‘for decades we citizens have been searched ... at airports ... without any warrants.’ How, he asks, is that different from wiretaps?

“The Fourth Amendment states: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects ... shall not be violated.’ Isn’t the privacy that’s protected more like a phone conversation than an airport search? The Supreme Court held in Katz v. U.S., 1967, that we have a reasonable expectation of privacy when we are on the telephone, not at the airport.”

[RWC] Katz v. U.S. says nothing about airport searches. In this case, without wiretapping, the FBI eavesdropped on a bookie’s phone call made in a public phone booth.

You have to love Mr. Demarest’s “logic.” The Constitution says nothing about eavesdropping on conversations but that’s covered. The Constitution specifically mentions “searches” of “papers and effects,” but they aren’t covered.

“Reeping dismisses the Constitution as ‘words written by men who never flew in a plane or talked on a telephone.’ This is a two-edged sword. Maybe the ‘right to keep and bear arms’ is limited to single-shot pistols since the framers never fired an 11-round Glock.

“Reeping wrote that he thinks the British are much tougher on terrorists. But the British can’t detain even ‘enemy combatants’ for more than 28 days without charge. They can never use torture or execute. They’ve complained about Gitmo and they have their own FISA Act - the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), with judicial oversight.”

[RWC] Regarding RIPA, it doesn’t require a warrant when “the interception is carried out for the purpose of obtaining information about the communications of a person who, or who the interceptor has reasonable grounds for believing, is in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom.” That describes the NSA program. Regarding “judicial oversight,” judges don’t issue warrants, the Secretary of State does.

“The Bush administration seemed to recognize that its argument that the president has inherent powers to wiretap domestically is contradicted by the Supreme Court seek-seizure case, the Keith case, the FISA Act, and the language of Article II, Section II.”

[RWC] “Domestically?” We’re talking about international communications. When a plane flight from Pittsburgh to Paris is considered “domestic,” you can begin asserting the NSA terrorist surveillance program is about domestic eavesdropping.

I couldn’t find a “Keith case.”

Regarding FISA, several former FISA judges testified before Congress that the NSA program didn’t violate FISA.

Regarding Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, it in no way contradicts the Bush administration’s argument.

“Its alternative argument that the Authorization for Military Force amended FISA is even more absurd. U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter has switched sides and is now trying to amend FISA to rescue Bush. His ‘compromise’ bill must be stopped.”

[RWC] Here’s the relevant part of the AMF. “That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” Mr. Demarest wants us to believe the AMF authorizes the President to kill terrorists without court supervision, but not eavesdrop on their international conversations.

“Specter has switched sides?” Poppycock! This has been Sen. Specter’s position all along. Further, it’s the position of most (all?) Democrats in Congress. To the best of my knowledge, not a single Democrat has advocated killing the terrorist surveillance program.