Rep. Jane Harman (D-California) thinks warrantless wiretaps are swell. Now she is upset that the government eavesdropped on her private conversations. I guess she must be mad that they used a warrant. From Salon's Glenn Greenwald:
So if I understand this correctly -- and I'm pretty sure I do -- when the U.S. Government eavesdropped for years on American citizens with no warrants and in violation of the law, that was "both legal and necessary" as well as "essential to U.S. national security," and it was the "despicable" whistle-blowers (such as Thomas Tamm) who disclosed that crime and the newspapers which reported it who should have been criminally investigated, but not the lawbreaking government officials. But when the U.S. Government legally and with warrants eavesdrops on Jane Harman, that is an outrageous invasion of privacy and a violent assault on her rights as an American citizen, and full-scale investigations must be commenced immediately to get to the bottom of this abuse of power. Behold Jane Harman's overnight transformation from Very Serious Champion of the Lawless Surveillance State to shrill civil liberties extremist.Jane Harman: Angry, partisan, civil liberties extremist
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Mark: I heard her give her retort on NPR yesterday and I thought much the same. But now that congressional critters have realized that they too can be wire-tapped in the name of "national security", maybe they will get off their asses and do something about it.
Support your ACLU and EFF who are continuing to fight against this blatant abuse of our constitutional right to privacy!
The hypocricy around warrantless wiretapping, supporting it so long as its the "little people" getting tapped and acting outraged when it's done to her, is one thing.
The whole other kettle of fish is that she offered to pull political strings for some Israeli spies in exchange for political contributions.
I don't think I'd be voting for her reelection.
Hypocrisy Fail
I think she is misquoted in the post above. the link to her Brit Hume interview makes it clear that she only thought a foreign intelligence program, not domestic, was "both legal and necessary"..So to say she ever supported domestic eavesdropping isn't really correct.
of course this could just be her saying that after the fact, still the linked post seems misleading..
You have to admit she's got a bold sense of fashion. I love the way her blazer matches the background in the photo. I hope she has a matching outfit for the Federal prison's color palette.
How does that medicine taste?
The Democrats really need to purge the party of people like this if they don't want to fall prey to another Gingrich-driven faux-outrage revolution in 2010...
It would be funny if it weren't so terribly tragic that people with so little idea of how civilisation is undertaken can be put in charge of undertaking it.
Harman was one of the biggest Democratic "war on terror" boosters and flag wavers for the encroaching police state, I couldn't think of a more fitting act 2 to her career story. Maybe she stepped out of line or didn't follow the script and she's getting a taste of the true nature of the control freaks she's aligned herself with? Anyway, me thinks her lesson will be learned and she'll quietly slither back into "service" a little wiser for the experience.
I can't blame them. I'd tap that.
...
What?
Hypocritical congresscritter is hypocritical.
Agreed. At what point, exactly, is it bad enough that they start shooting people for treason?
You do have to wonder what it was the spooks overheard that's got her so upset.
#10 ftw. Talk about pocket flaps, my gal's got 'em.
Reading the linked transcript, while she did say she was informed (and by implication, approved) of the wiretapping policy, it sounds like she didn't realize its poor legal footing until later. And later when she was able to discuss it with council, determined that it was a policy to be concerned about.
I think the "but my hands were tied" excuse seems a bit weak even if she could not investigate or discuss the policy without betraying the confidentiality requirements
BUT I think the poster is hurting the credibility of this blog post by painting her as a gun-ho, "screw American rights" zealot. She doesn't read that way to me (at least with the single transcript I see linked here).
as more get caught, all they will do is change the wiretap laws so they can't be. They're evil, not stupid.
i just saw a movie last night that had that woman in it
http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food
Robert Siegel: "First, do you remember the phone call in question?"
Rep. Jane Harman: "We don't know if there was a phone call. ... I have to say I am outraged that I may have been wiretapped by my government in 2005 or 2006 while I was ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee."
Robert Siegel: "But are you saying that you really don't have any recollection at all of a phone conversation like this?"
Rep. Jane Harman: "I'm saying that, No. 1, I don't know that there was a phone conversation. If there was and it was intercepted, let's read exactly what I said to whom."
BUT I think the poster is hurting the credibility of this blog post by painting her as a gun-ho, "screw American rights" zealot. She doesn't read that way to me (at least with the single transcript I see linked here).
So, what happened is that the DOJ started an investigation of Harman back in 2005 after they tapped her phone conversation with the Israeli spied.
Then the White House got wind of their investigation at the same time that the White House got wind that the Times was about to break the whole story about the illegal US wiretapping program.
So, the White House pressured the DOJ to drop the investigation into Harmon.
Why would the Bush White House care about the DOJ investigating a Democrat?
Because Harman had been a massive attack dog back in 2004 defending the White House's war on terror bullshit.
So, the White House pressured the DOJ to drop the investigation against Harman in exchange for Harman acting as attack dog defending the illegal wiretapping program.
On December 16, the Times ran the article.
On December 21, Harman issued a statement defending the illegal wiretap operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”
So, she was being investigated for offering to stop an investigatino into Israeli spies in exchange for favors. The White House then offered to stop the investigation on Harman in exchange for favors of their own.
The level of debauchery there is unbelievable.
http://www.warhw.com/2009/04/20/congresswoman-harmon-israeli-spies-and-bushs-illegal-wiretapping/
A right-wing colleague of mine once told me that everyone's a liberal until they're mugged.
I replied that everyone's a conservative until they've been shaken down by the cops.
She's had her shakedown. Let's hope it works.
zenbeatnik:
I guess that living where live, seeing what I have seen and experiencing what I have experienced, I should have become Pinochet II, according to your friend.
Not really.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who listened to NPR in bafflement. Maybe it's just me, but it sounded to me like Robert Siegel was stuck somewhere between bafflement and anger. I mean, she never really did answer any questions!
To be perfectly honest, this is somewhat similar to being against CCTV but for the right to photograph anything, anytime.
Spazzm, that's a good line of thought but not really a fair comparison.
CCTV proliferation is about systematic aggregation of images by those with authority (vested publicly or privately), tipping the balance against individual freedom.
Photographic freedom is about individual aggregation of images by those under authority, maintaining the balance of individual freedom.
@zenbeatnik
if you've had both, does that make you a libertarian?
"Look if someone isn't doing anything wrong, they shouldnt have any objection to the government listening in to their conversations."
Her line.
Oh, I forgot its different now that it directly affects her.
tell me again how this isn't treason?
She's about as Democrat as Joe Lieberman, so I hope this makes her re-evaluate her position on the security stand she's espoused. But slap to the Salon guy for going for "shrill." When they start using that word for annoying male politicians I will retract the slap.
#28 - Only way this isn't treason is if the NSA tape doesn't really exist. As far as I know there isn't a copy of it online yet, it could even be that it's contents were misreported.
Otherwise, yes, it would seem to me that she is guilty of having committed TREASON even by the extremely narrow definition in the US Constitution. One can not reasonably say that arrested foreign spies aren't enemies, and the tape makes plain her agreement to give these spies aid and comfort.
Also, it BOTHERS me that no one will say the obvious. She was Jewish. She plotted treason on behalf of Israel. If she was Muslim and made this agreement with an agent for Syria or Egypt, would the media really fail to point that out???
She was Jewish. She plotted treason on behalf of Israel. If she was Muslim and made this agreement with an agent for Syria or Egypt, would the media really fail to point that out???
Although I'll admit that the media certainly would have jumped on it if she was Muslim, your overall point has more in common with internment camps for Americans of Japanese descent during WWII. Being Jewish does not make someone an Israeli agent anymore than being Catholic makes someone an agent for the Vatican.
@ MARKM:
"Look if someone isn't doing anything wrong, they shouldnt have any objection to the government listening in to their conversations."
Her behaviour is entirely consistent with this credos since she was doing something wrong she has clear cause for objection. It's only innocent people we should be spying on!
#29 JENJEN, in fact they have been using the word "shrill" for years to apply to men. It's mostly used by bloggers on the left as a mocking repayment for having the word applied to them.
Try this in the ole goog for tons of examples:
"shrill site:www.eschatonblog.com"
ZENBEATNIK wrote:
The version I've heard is that if you are in your 20's and you're not a democrat, then you don't have a heart. If you are in your 40's and you're a not a republican, you don't have a brain. ;^)
Being Jewish does not make someone an Israeli agent
Accusing someone of being a Japanese sympathizer simply because of their heretige is a pre-judgement.
Finding out someone helping Israeli spies happens to be Jewish, well, that explains their motivation.
If she's shilling for Israel, it might also explain why she was such a rabid hawk while being a democrat. She was probably defending Bush's war on terror specifically because Bush was attacking one of Israel's arch-enemies, Iraq.
If she were my representative, I'd be campaigning for a replacement. I wouldn't trust her for a second.
You reap what you sow.
I also caught her NPR interview the other day. It was a real dodge-fest. She wouldn't refute anything that was allegedly recorded. All she wanted to do was talk about how outraged she was to be wiretapped and "that nobody told her she was wiretapped."
... I don't think that's how wiretaps work
Good breakdown of her bs Mark. More like this.
Antinous @31:
I didn't read Thebes post at 30 as implying just hbecause she's jewish makes her a spy, or in total cahoots with Israel.
I think it fair to say it was most probably a big part of her motivations in helping in the way she allegedly did.
And yes, if she was Muslim and it was a Muslim country involved, alot more people would be screaming terror or treason and the scrutiny she is put under would be much, MUCH greater.
Equally, I doubt the Bush regieme would have pressured the DOJ to stop the investigation - the leverage a Muslim deomcrat looking after Muslim spies would give the GOP is incredible, and sounds like a scandal they could only dream of.
It's not treason. If Israel were at war with the US, or were in a definable way an "enemy" of the US, THEN it would be treason. If she had given "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein's government after it became clear that US troops would be used against him - say if she leaked plans revealing which routes US troops would take into Iraq - that would be treason.
Using "treason" as a shorthand for "doing things that are prejudicial to the interests of the United States" is a bad practice, because what is prejudicial to the interests of the US is open to interpretation and manipulation (by the definition of some extremists, raising taxes or intervening in health care is a violation of the principles of the Constitution). Because treason is so explicitly a capital crime in the US, it's important to keep its definition very precise.
Harman isn't a traitor in the technical sense; but obviously (based on the NPR interview, in which it became quite clear that she was lying and did remember the conversation), she is guilty of corruption, of abetting an act of espionage, abetting the violation of US citizen's civil rights, and the victim of an act of extortion. Since the espionage in this case is relatively minor (offering to help get two suspected spies released), if I were a prosecutor (I am no lawyer), I'd use the charges mainly to threaten her into cooperating in a criminal prosecution of Gonzalez.
Important to remember that the people who voted for her are equally moronic
@digitalcole
'reap what you sow' is just as true for the voters who put this idiot in office.
Lazy voters are the single greatest threat to democracy
I had broken this topic on another discussion board as well. Basically, I'm convinced that all politicians and government officials have no sense of self-irony or hypocrisy except when they're levying the claim against someone else.
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
-Mel Brooks
Here's the actual link to Greenwald's post, as opposed to the MSNBC transcript.
#29:
Greenwald uses 'shrill' because it is a critique conservative/MSM media use to describe people who point out something is seriously, seriously wrong with this country. His entire post is satire, and I recommend you read it in full (not to mention retracting your ill-thought-out slap).
Google Search: site:salon.com inurl:greenwald shrill
Tim Hutton@~35:
What have you got if you stay liberal throughout life? -Principles.
What have you got if you stay conservative throughout life? -Willful ignorance.
#31 (and from a moderator)
your overall point has more in common with internment camps for Americans of Japanese descent during WWII
WTF! I made NO SUCH POINT!
My point was that her religion helps explain her motivation as a spy, and furthermore the media was ignoring her motivation as a spy.
It would be more like a Japanese spy being caught during WWII and the US media ignoring that the spy was Japanese.
BTW, #40, I find it rather a stretch to claim that an imprisoned spy is not an enemy of the USA.
anonymous: It's not treason. If Israel were at war with the US, or were in a definable way an "enemy" of the US, THEN it would be treason.
What the hell? Two men who worked for AIPAC, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were accused of passing American classified information to a foreign government, Israel.
The purpose of which is sketchy, but may have been to try to get America to launch a military operation against Israel's arch-enemy, Iran.
Harman offered to put pressure on teh DOJ to NOT PROSECUTE these two spies in exchange for MONEY in teh form of political contributions that would be tied to getting Harman on the Intelligence Committee.
Are you unaware of what actually transpired? Are you arguing based on some strict legal distinction of treason? Or are you sympathetic to Israel and going to bat for them here no matter what they actually did?
Thebes,
How do you know her religion?
Antinous, her religion is a matter of public record, for example at wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Harman
She is also discussed as being a Jewish office-holder at http://www.jewishsightseeing.com/jewish_officeholders/jewish_officeholders-california/jane_harman/jane_harman.htm
this second is a source that I could hardly consider to possibly be anti-semetic.
Should you be able to show me any fact that contradicts my assertion that she is Jewish, I would be most happy to give it serious consideration. My point is, and remains, that the media has largely ignored her religion and the fact that certain radicalized segments of her religion believe that it is their religious duty to give aid and comfort to those acting on behalf of a greater Israel. Again if a Muslim did this on behalf of UAE or Saudi spies their religion would be mentioned in every single news-story. Its a double standard- and I have of course not suggested that Jews or Muslims be rounded up for concentration camps.
Otoh, it is easy to see why no one talks about this- they get swung at merely for pointing out a relevant fact.
Some people will just never accept this as a crime. After all, their unfettered love for Israel supersedes all political reality. Bottom line: if someone underhandedly takes classified CIA information without clearance, that is a crime. It doesn't matter what you feel "their best intentions" were, or how much they love Israel. That doesn't change the fact that you undermined national security, and such information can fall into the wrong hands.