Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Bork Balks At Opposition To Wiretapping

A controversial conservative legal scholar and failed Supreme Court nominee said on Tuesday that the furor over judicial oversight of the federal government's electronic surveillance program is "part of a much broader drive to judicialize everything."

Robert Bork, a former judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, told a Hudson Institute seminar that "all aspects of life" are being held up for judicial scrutiny "from grade schools to fire departments to police departments to the military."

"We have Harry Reid, the ACLU and MoveOn.org, but we have a lot of less extreme anti-war types too," Bork said. "Now we have something we've never had before -- extensive judicial supervision of various aspects of the war [on terror], including gathering of intelligence."

The Hudson fellow recalled the moment when he was informed of the previously secret warrantless wiretapping program while serving as acting attorney general. A pair of FBI officials briefed him on the initiative and he was asked to sign authorizations for the work. "I did and so did every other attorney general in our history that was asked."

Bork also noted that the extent of the spying during that era was "much broader than anything that takes place now or has been proposed today." Contrary to what many believe, Bork also said he was unaware of any abuses under the program.

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that it was 20 years ago this month that Bork was the focus of a Washington City Paper story that detailed his video rental habits. The article fueled a national debate over individuals' rights to privacy. Read more about that here.

George Washington University law professor Greg Maggs also spoke at the event about the controversy surrounding government data collection. He argued that U.S. counterterrorism efforts should not be defined as either law enforcement or military action, because terrorists act as enemy combatants in some ways and criminal suspects in others.