Bush-league media

Glenn Greenwald's article today clearly articulates what is at stake regarding the Specter bill which would attempt to make legal the behaviour of GWB that the court has already determined to be in violation of FISA and the constitution. Greenwald laments that there's little hope of informed discussion if the media can't seem to get the most basic facts about this issue straight.

[T]he Republicans will attempt to exploit this debate by advancing two factually false claims:

Falsehood # 1: the debate is about whether the President can eavesdrop on Al Qaeda and other terrorists;

Falsehood # 2: "most Americans" support warrantless eavesdropping.

Whether Republicans get away with these two factually false claims depends on whether journalists do their jobs by pointing out that these claims are false (not unpersuasive, but false).

[...]

The difference between FISA and the warrantless eavesdropping program is not about whether the President can eavesdrop on terrorists. He can eavesdrop on all of the terrorists he wants under FISA as it is written. What is being debated -- the only difference -- is whether he should be able to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans with judicial oversight (as all Presidents have done for the last 30 years) or whether he can eavesdrop on Americans in secret, without oversight (which led to severe abuses of the eavesdropping powers in the four decades prior to FISA). That is what is being decided, not whether he can eavesdrop on terrorists.

Leaving FISA as is -- or eliminating The Terrorist Surveillance Program today -- would mean that the President can still freely eavesdrop on Al Qaeda's conversations. If we eliminated The Terrorist Surveillance Program this minute, the President could still listen in when Osama bin Laden calls. That's because FISA, as is, vests aggressive power in the President to eavesdrop on America's enemies. Why is that so hard for journalists to comprehend?

Those who oppose the Specter bill favor aggressive eavesdropping on terrorists. What they oppose is allowing the President to eavesdrop on Americans in secret, with no judicial oversight.

When Bush and his supporters argue, as they will relentlessly in the coming weeks, that Democrats oppose eavesdropping on Al Qaeda, that is not political advocacy. That is not "spin." It is not a legitimate argument or a factually questionable proposition that ought to be passed along without comment. It is none of those things. What that is instead is a factually false claim -- a lie, if one insists. Nobody opposes eavesdropping on Al Qaeda. The President has the full power right now under FISA to eavesdrop as much as he wants on terrorists. To say otherwise -- to say that Democrats want to stop eavesdropping on terrorists -- is just untrue. Period.

If journalists have any responsibility at all beyond being stenographers, it is to make clear the falsity of claims like that. When political officials make false statements as part of their attempt to persuade the public, the role of journalists is to expose the falsity, point out that it is false, not pass it along and treat it like a questionable though legitimate political argument. Journalistic neutrality does not justify -- nor does it permit -- journalists to repeat the factually false statements of government officials without clearly stating that they are false.

This week's FISA debate is about whether the President can eavesdrop on Americans in secret, not whether he can eavesdrop on terrorists. And most Americans oppose -- not favor -- secret, warrantless eavesdropping. Those are two clear, simple facts which every journalist who reports on this story ought to know and make clear to their readers and viewers whenever they "report" on the debate over eavesdropping.