Gore: Guard Internet from Govt. Encroachment
House and Senate hearings, new whistleblower rules and a special prosecutor are needed to deal with the National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance scandal, former Vice President Al Gore said Mon. Speaking in D.C. at an event honoring the late Martin Luther King, Gore called the date especially pertinent, because the govt. wiretapped the civil rights leader for years.
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Any telecom firm that has given the govt. access to data without proper warrants should “immediately cease and desist their complicity in this apparently illegal invasion of the privacy of American citizens,” Gore said at DAR Constitution Hall. The speech, sponsored by the Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, was Gore’s first lengthy comment since the scandal erupted in Dec.
Freedom of communication is a condition of restoring American democracy’s health, Gore said. The Internet in particular needs protection from govt. encroachment and large media conglomerates’ control, he said. Secret govt. spying on countless citizens’ e-mails and international phone calls, stealthily authorized by the White House after the 9/11 attacks, should be a hot issue in the 2006 political campaign, Gore said.
The former presidential hopeful said President Bush put at grave risk “the American values we hold most dear.” Bush’s “unprecedented claims” and a “truly breathtaking expansion of executive power” are troubling, he said. The Administration has “brazenly declared that it has the right to continue [eavesdropping]” on security grounds, he said.
Gore called King one of “one of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government” during the ‘60s. Revelations about the extent and intent of FBI spying on members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped move Congress to pass privacy laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he said. The court FISA created has been a “valuable and workable” way of authorizing surveillance over the years, he said.
Much remains unknown about NSA e-surveillance, Gore said, but it is known that Bush “has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently,” by allowing secret, warrantless wiretapping. The NSA scandal speaks to a larger problem of steadily increasing Executive Branch power, Gore said.
The White House didn’t respond formally to Gore’s speech. President Bush and Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales, who has agreed to testify in Feb. hearings on NSA spying, made speeches honoring King. A Republican National Committee spokeswoman told the AP soon after Gore’s speech that his “incessant need to insert himself in the headline of the day is almost as glaring as his lack of understanding of the threats facing America.”
A Zogby poll showed 52% of Americans think Bush should be impeached if he wiretapped citizens without judicial approval. The survey, commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, also found that 6% didn’t know whether Bush should be impeached or declined to answer. “The American people are not buying Bush’s outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant,” said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik.
Meanwhile, the ACLU revived a call for the Administration to stop its spying. In a full-page Washington Post ad, the group criticized the President for authorizing the NSA surveillance program. The ad, like Gore’s speech, named King among targets of inappropriate govt. wiretapping. “It has never been acceptable for the government to spy on Americans without having to go to court and present evidence,” ACLU Exec. Dir. Anthony Romero said.