More evidence of spin. Here’s a section from the transcript of May 20 Congressional testimony given by Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh on how the Justice Department has contacted libraries in the course of its duties:
REP. CHABOT: Can you tell us how many times, if at all, library records have been accessed under the new FISA standards in the USA PATRIOT Act? And if they have been so accessed, have the requests been confined to the library records of a specified person?
AAG DINH: Mr. Chairman, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, requires the Department of Justice to submit semi-annual reports to this committee and also to the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate counterparts on the number of times and the manner in which that section was used in total. We have made those reports. Unfortunately, because they occur in the context of national security investigation, that information is classified.
We have made, in light of the recent public information concerning visits to the library, we have conducted an informal survey of the field offices, relating to its visits to libraries. And I think the results from this informal survey is that libraries have been contacted approximately 50 times, based on articulatable suspicion or voluntary calls from libraries regarding suspicious activities. Most, if not all of these contacts that we have identified were made in the context of a criminal investigation and pursuant to voluntary disclosure or a grand jury subpoena, in that context.
{The italics are mine.] Here is how the New York Times reported this testimony the next day:
In the most detailed public accounting of how it had used its expanded powers to fight terrorism, the Justice Department released information today showing that federal agents had conducted hundreds of bugging and surveillance operations and visited numerous libraries and mosques using new law enforcement tools … Such a mingling of intelligence and criminal investigations was largely banned under internal Justice Department procedures that were in place before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 … And agents have contacted about 50 libraries nationwide in the course of terrorism investigations, often at the invitation of librarians who saw something suspicious, said Viet Dinh, an assistant attorney general who briefed members of the House Judiciary Committee on the findings at a hearing today.
Notice the critical distinction here. Dinh specifically said that the library contacts had nothing to do with national security or terrorism. The Times reported that that was precisely the context in which those contacts were made. The question is not whether you believe DOJ or not. I’m as queasy about some of these investigations as anyone. The question is what was actually said at the hearing. The Times, it seems to me, simply and critically misrepresented what Viet Dinh said, to make a point opposite to that in his testimony. The DOJ has subsequently protested the Times’ account. As well they might.
ANOTHER COUNTRY: “I think you may be a little hasty in poo-pooing the Sontag line about imagining you’re not an American. (Hell, for you it’s not even too difficult, is it?) A certain sort of person takes the position that one should not criticize others unless one’s own house is perfectly in order. When thinking about one’s own country this line of thought inevitably leads to a double standard: Judging your own country but reserving judgment on others.
To take my own case, in principle I am an anarchist and in practice I am a mild social democrat. One thing I found when I started thinking of myself as an anarchist (largely to distance myself from socialists) was that I came to view the United States as just another country, and when you put them all on a level playing field with the others it comes off rather well.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.
The Dish 