End run

Sunday, a report in the Washington Post indicated that the Pentagon plans to expand its powers and activities in the area of domestic surveillance, including a push for legislation that would create broad exceptions to the Privacy Act. This move is apparently backed by the Administration...

...[which] is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

Now I have to say that, at first glance, such an expansion of investigative jurisdiction doesn't seem completely unreasonable. After all, let's be realistic for a moment - there are an increasing number of motivated radical individuals around the globe with an active desire to do physical violence to the citizens and institutions of the West. That a large part of the blame for the upswing in said activity falls on the shoulders of the Bush Administration might be relevant, but... well, that's a topic for another time.

Nevertheless, it is logical that defending against a 21st Century terrorist attack (i.e. one requiring a precise coordination of foreign and domestic civilian, military, and economic components) would necessitate a widening of cooperation among U.S. law-enforcement, intelligence, and military institutions. And, as a matter of course, we know we can rely on Congressional review and oversight to ensure that our essential civil liberties remain protected from potential abuse.

Except that's not what's happening. WaPo continues:

[T]he Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.

The White House should not be so eager to back a plan which, in the words of Center for National Security Studies director Kate Martin, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." It certainly should not be doing so by once again attempting to bypass Congressional debate. Is it just me, or is it more than a little unsettling to hear that the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee...

...said in a recent interview that CIFA has performed well in the past and today has no domestic intelligence collection activities. He was not aware of moves to enhance its authority. (emphasis added)

Do you mean to tell me that even the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is out of the loop?! Or, worse yet, in on the scam?

We owe a debt of thanks to Senator Wyden for keeping an eye on things to the extent he, and he alone, has so far. And we need to remind our elected representatives that they, too, have a responsibility to take an interest in any expansion of domestic military powers, and should want to know why plans are moving forward without Congressional involvement.

There does come a moment when threat of "Presidential directive" begins to sound much more like a sinister end run around democracy itself.