Declassify them
by David Atkins
Greg Sargent asks if the Obama Administration couldn’t simply declassify the FISC rulings to have the “debate” over national security that it claims to welcome. And the answer is, well, yes it can:
But couldn’t the Obama administration declassify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinions that make this surveillance possible if it wanted to?
The answer is Yes, according to Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s totally within the administration’s control to declassify these opinions, after redactions, if necessary,” Richardson says. “So there could actually be an informed debate about the legal basis for this sort of data collection.”
A bipartisan group of senators — led by progressive Jeff Merkley and Tea Partyer Mike Lee — is coalescing around a bill that would require the declassification and release of these legal opinions. But the appetite in Congress for this step appears limited, given that most Members support the programs.
Still, it seems clear that the administration could declassify these opinions itself, at least in some form. Indeed, even Senator Dianne Feinstein — the chair of the Intelligence Committee and a very aggressive defender of the NSA programs – signed a letter earlier this year to the FISC, asking the court to do just that. The letter noted that the court could issue “summaries” of its interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — revealing the legal thinking behind using the Act to authorize surveillance activity — while keeping the classified aspects of each specific administration request for this authorization under wraps.
A lot of people ostensibly on the left have been divided on the whether the government’s spying actions have been appropriate or not. I think not; others differ.
But what almost everyone seems to agree on is that there needs to be much more transparency about what the government is doing so that Congress and the people can make up their own minds how much security they are buying with their loss of freedom, and whether it’s at all worth it. It’s a conversation the country needs to have. It’s a conversation the Obama Administration says it wants to have. It’s a conversation that candidate Barack Obama said he wanted to have in the 2008 campaign.
And it’s a conversation that President Obama can make happen of his own accord.
So make it happen, Mr. President. Declassify the FISC rulings and let the sunshine in.
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