I Spy a Terrorist
Victoria Toensing’s “Constitutional Surveillance” and Stanley C. Brubaker’s “The Misunderstood Fourth Amendment” (Mar. 6 / Mar. 13) both provided important clarification of the legal and constitutional issues surrounding NSA surveillance activities. It is no credit to the media in this country that it has taken this long for a coherent and well-reasoned commentary on this matter to surface. As a technologist (electrical engineer), I wonder if there is not another serious impediment to the use of probable cause to govern such surveillance.
Since al Qaeda hasn’t published a phone directory, and since human intelligence sources are limited, it seems likely that the NSA uses sophisticated computer processing of the content of all phone calls to or from a whole region to decide whether a human intelligence expert will actually listen to the message. This could include calls that terminate in the United States. It is unclear how the concept of probable cause would be applied to listening decisions based on the content of calls. This seems analogous to a police officer saying, “We searched the house and found guns, dope, and money so we must have had probable cause!” This form of surveillance, however, should meet the criteria of reasonableness as urged in Brubaker’s excellent article on the Fourth Amendment.
Michael Madden
Talking Rock, Ga.
Danish Dispute
In “CBS Does Denmark,” (Mar. 6 / Mar. 13), Henrik Bering contends that “nothing much happened” from the initial flap caused by Jyllands-Posten‘s publication of the Muhammad cartoons on September 30 until “a delegation of fundamentalist imams from Denmark decided to tour the Middle East, stirring up hatred.” This would seem to exculpate Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of any political responsibility, despite his inept handling of the affair.
Bering omits that Danish Muslims tried to keep the controversy within Denmark’s borders. On October 10, several thousand Muslims demonstrated peacefully in Copenhagen. Two days later ambassadors from eleven Muslim countries asked to meet the prime minister to discuss growing hostility toward Muslims in Denmark. A few days later the Organization of the Islamic Conference warned Rasmussen that the “situation could escalate out of control,” unless he took issue with the cartoons. On October 25, Egypt’s foreign ministry asked Copenhagen to distance itself from Jyllands-Posten. In November and December, Danish diplomats in the Middle East reported of growing resentment at Denmark’s refusal to condemn the cartoons. It is impossible to understand Rasmussen’s unwillingness to respond unless one is familiar with the domestic political context. It has become quite popular in Denmark to stand up to Muslims, who tend to be confused with Islamists. The conservative government depends on support in Parliament from the anti-immigrant Danish People’s party, which, contrary to Bering’s views, is “ultra right-wing.” Today, the DPP is the largest xenophobic party in any European country. This should trouble all people of conscience, liberals and conservatives. In the United States, a party expressing such contempt for ethnic and religious minorities would never gain traction.
Martin Burcharth
Cambridge, Mass.
Henrik Bering responds: Martin Burcharth’s concern for the edification of an American audience is touching, given the fact that the paper for which he serves as the U.S. correspondent is one of the main purveyors of anti-Americanism in Denmark: Information is the tiny organ of the Danish left-wing intelligentsia, who, having lost the ideological struggle of the Cold War, have emerged as the proponents of third world causes and grievances, in the process becoming apologists for religious fanatics. How this agrees with the left’s stance on women’s rights, the death penalty, homosexuality, and all the rest is never fully explained.
Correction
Last week’s “Saddam’s Philippines Terror Connection” reported that the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terror group was “founded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law.” It should have said funded.
