A front-page article in today’s Washington Post reports:
Report Rebuts Bush on Spying
Domestic Action’s Legality Challenged
The version of the Oxford American Dictionary that is built into my computer’s operating system (Thanks, Apple!) says “rebut” means to “claim or prove that (evidence or an accusation) is false.” The Congressional Research Service report does indeed “claim” that the NSA surveillance program was illegal, but it certainly doesn’t prove it, although the WaPo article is written as though it does.
In fact, the report apparently doesn’t even claim to prove it, and is much more circumspect than the tone of the article suggests. For example:
The 44-page report said that Bush probably cannot claim the broad presidential powers he has relied upon….
The report also concluded that Bush’s assertion that Congress authorized such eavesdropping to detect and fight terrorists does not appear to be supported by the special resolution that Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks….
“It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here,” the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration’s legal justification “does not seem to be . . . well-grounded,” they said. [Emphasis added]
No one, however, can accuse today’s Democrats of circumspection, or recognizing it in others. Thus Sen. Frank Lautenberg is quoted as follows:
“This report contradicts the president’s claim that his spying on Americans was legal,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the lawmakers who asked the CRS to research the issue. “It looks like the president’s wiretapping was not only illegal, but also ensnared innocent Americans who did nothing more than place a phone call.”
No, the report rebuts the president’s claim that the policy was legal with a claim that it was not, but both claims are in large part merely predictions of what courts will conclude.
The WaPo article, however, gives short (if any) shrift to the notion that the president’s argument is not only plausible but possibly even correct. Although it quotes a Justice Dept. spokesman saying the program “is on firm legal footing” and was “conducted in accord with the law,” it goes on to state that “[s]ome law professors have been skeptical of the president’s assertions,” states that “several” said the report’s conclusions were expected, and quotes one of them, Univ. of Richmond law prof Carl Tobias, who states that “the Administration’s position is not persuasive.” Moving on, the article quotes another administration critic, Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who wants the Congress to investigate “the president’s abuse of citizens’ privacy rights.”
No doubt the Washington Post looked far and wide to find a law professor or interest group advocate who believes the surveillance program is legal and simply couldn’t find one. Perhaps it even called Prof. Cass Sunstein, usually a reliable liberal, who must not have been at home. In any event, on the evidence presented in this article the only defenders of the Bush administration work for it.
A totally off topic response, but why do they always preface a report or a judicial ruling with its size? Does a larger number of pages give it more credibility? We used to have this joke in graduate school with respect to the writing of our Ph.D. thesis (in physics); namely, will it be quantity or quality. At least in physics it was recognized that the two are not necessarily related and in fact may be inversely related. And no, my Ph.D. thesis was not larger than War and Peace. :)