Citizens' Brigade: MoveOn.Org sponsors vigils across the nation to protest the NSA's warrantless domestic wiretapping program

US Congressman Maurice Hinchey [D-NY] receives confirmation from the US Justice Department will begin an investigation into their agency's role in the NSA program

by Erin Quinn
First published by New Paltz Times on 3-2-2006

More than 100 outraged citizens lined the corner of Main Street and Plattekill Avenue in downtown New Paltz this past Friday night to protest president George Bush’s authorization of the National Security Administration domestic wiretapping program that allows it to eavesdrop on American citizens thought to have some connection with terrorist organizations without a court warrant.
                                                                                                                        The protest took the form of a vigil, “Protect Our Democracy,” and was one of hundreds that took place across the nation at the behest of the political action organization MoveOn.org. The goal of the vigils was to put pressure on the administration to conduct a “thorough independent investigation of the President’s illegal wiretapping program.”

According to MoveOn, the ACLU, and numerous members of the House and Senate -- both Democrat and Republican -- the president’s authorization of the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program is in direct violation of Congress’s adoption of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA], which describes the procedures the National Security Administration must take to collect foreign intelligence information using physical and electronic surveillance within the United States. FISA has a special, secret court available at all hours designed for authorities to use for obtaining emergency warrants for domestic eavesdropping. Over the years, only four requests for warrants, of the thousands that have been authorized, were denied.

Ironically, the FISA was created in response to former President Nixon’s abuse of the NSA to spy on domestic political adversaries and the warrantless wiretapping and eavesdropping that intelligence conducted on civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

The FISA was set up to ensure checks and balances with the addition of a secret court that would provide warrants for domestic eavesdropping within 72 hours. Since September 9/11, Congress shortened the time frame from 72 to 24 hours to have warrants approved and even allowed some warrants to be granted after the surveillance had begun.

In the post-9/11 climate, President Bush felt that this wasn’t enough, and claims that the congressional approval he received to invade Iraq gives him executive power to fight terrorism in ways he and his administration feels is necessary.

“Congress is being pressured by the White House to stop all investigations and to exempt the NSA spying program from needing any court review,” said Barbara Upton, member of Woman in Black of New Paltz and of MoveOn Political Action. “In our democracy, no one is above the law, not even the president. We need to pressure our legislators to defend the Constitution and hold our president accountable.”

New Paltz village mayor Jason West was among the hundred protestors holding candles and listening to the Bill of Rights being read aloud, while passing motorists honked and cheered their support. “Unfortunately we have a long practice of this kind of illegal activity by the executive branch in our country,” said West. “This is not the only time warrantless eavesdropping and wiretapping has been used. It was used excessively during the Civil Rights era, when the FBI and federal government under Democratic presidents Kennedy and Johnson collected hundreds of hours of Martin Luther King Jr.’s phone conversations trying to find any way to prosecute him and silence him. Once again, what is of great concern is that this [current] program can be used to undermine anti-war organizations, civil rights organizations -- groups of citizens that are trying to effect policy change peacefully and democratically.”

West added that calling for the end of warrantless eavesdropping was not taking it far enough. “There shouldn’t be any eavesdropping or wiretapping on American citizens,” he said. “The government has no business opening our mail, reading our e-mails or listening to our conversations.”

West was positioned next to one man who carried a sign that said, “I’m no Maple Tree -- Don’t Tap Me.”

Rick Flynn of Stone Ridge was there with his wife to participate in the vigil. “This is part of MoveOn.org’s national protest and we wanted to join in,” said Flynn. “People are finally standing up to protect our civil liberties and our Constitution which have been trampled on by this administration. I think it is critical for the populous to rise up and demand the return of our democracy, which is what is at stake here. It should have been done sooner, but better now than later.”

Flynn did have words of praise for his congressional representative Maurice Hinchey [D-Hurley] and his demand for an investigation on the NSA program and the president’s and Department of Justice’ role in it as well as his call for an investigation into what he and others believe to be “false and manipulated pre-war intelligence reports to Congress and the American people” that led us into the war in Iraq.

“He has done an outstanding job,” said Flynn. “He is my personal hero. He has been unequivocal on these issues and fought at every turn to make this administration accountable when many of his colleagues have either turned a blind eye or participated in this administration’s illegal tactics.”

Residents of the region who oppose the policy certainly have their congressman’s support. In response to the news of the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, first reported by the New York Times in December of 2005, Hinchey along with three other congressmen and women, requested a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the agency’s involvement with the Bush administration’s decision to authorize the NSA not to seek court-ordered warrants.

Congressman Hinchey reported this past week that the Justice Department will be conducting an investigation. “I am very pleased to learn that an investigation is underway that will hopefully answer how President Bush went about creating this Big Brother program in consultation with the Department of Justice,” said Hinchey after receiving a letter from H.M. Jarrett, the DOJ’s counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility.

“This investigation should shed light on how the president went secretly to the DOJ in order to create the NSA surveillance program and detail the objections that Comey and Ashcroft reportedly raised over its legality,” he added. “All of us in Congress want to take every stop necessary to prevent potential future attacks, but we must find ways of doing it without stomping on the Constitution.”

Susan Griss, a member of New Paltz’s Women in Black, said that she was there because she was “tired of feeling powerless. I have to use my voice in whatever way I can to try and bring some common sense back to this administration. I’m ready to take to the streets. It appears to be the only alternative of everyday citizens.”

Peter Savago, who happened to pass by the demonstration on his way to dinner, had quite a different take on the issue. “The attorney general said it’s not illegal so I’ll take his opinion over their opinions [the protestors],” he said. “You don’t tell your enemy what you’re doing. What do these people think? That Al Qaeda’s going to turn themselves in? If they don’t like this country, then they are free to go somewhere else -- just don’t block the sidewalk!”

According to an independent poll released on February 24, 2006, that was commissioned by the ACLU and conducted by the Washington-based firm Beldon, Russonello & Stewart, “a majority of American voters oppose the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance of Americans by the National Security Agency.”

“Despite the rhetoric from the White House, these new data show that American voters recognize the need for a strong system of checks and balances,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “That secret eavesdropping is clearly illegal, and Congress must do its duty and demand the president stop breaking the law. It is unfortunate that the president continues to present Americans with a false choice. That we must choose between our constitutional rights and our security. This poll is the latest evidence that Americans believe our president does not need to subvert the Constitution to keep us safe.”

Hinchey concurred and had strong words for the president. “Countless legal scholars across the nation, including the president of the American Bar Association, have strongly spoken out in opposition to President Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, saying that the initiative is illegal,” he said. “There is no doubt that Congress needed to authorize such a surveillance program, but yet President Bush never bothered to seek congressional approval. What we’ve seen is a stubborn president who has refused to acknowledge that he went above the law and hopefully this investigation will finally make him realize that he was wrong.”

The participants of the vigil ended their hour-long protest by singing “God Bless America.”

Go Back to News.