The government spied on 4,000 Americans, but only arrested one?

[Originally published on a weblog called “What Is Liberalism?”]

Laura Rozen asks “Where are all the arrests?” The government illegally spied on 4,000 Americans. Why? The government argues that it had to do so to keep Americans safe – that it could not go to the courts because the courts were too slow. This suggests that extreme urgency motivated the spying. But if the intelligence was so urgent, wherre are the arrests?

Since October 2001, Bush has authorized 30 times – every 45 days – warrantless NSA domestic surveillance of what I have heard estimated of approximately 1,000 US persons a year. That would be 4,000 persons over the past four years, if I understand the shifting numbers offered correctly. But whatever it is. The Administration insisted again today that the only US persons being authorized to be spied on by Bush — that he somehow didn’t think he could get FISA warrants on — are directly linked to Al Qaeda suspects or a related terrorist group. As Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote in a public letter (.pdf linked) to Senate and House Intelligence committee leaders today, “As described by the President, the NSA intercepts certain international communications into and out of the United States of people linked to al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization.”

This begs the question: how many people known to be “linked” to Al Qaeda has the administration let roam the streets of America since 9/11? I would guess the answer would be approaching zero.

I simply find it hard to believe that we would have not heard of approximately 4,000 arrests were what Moschella is saying true. Being a close associate on the phone with a known Al Qaeda terrorist abroad must surely be grounds for more than a FISA warrant, which Bush never bothered to try to get. If many Americans had reason to think their neighbor was “linked to al Qaeda,” they surely would be on the phone to the FBI right away. Given that PETA and vegan groups are being investigated by the FBI, surely those in the US who regularly converse on the phone with real al Qaeda terrorists abroad — who are, as Asst. Attorney General Moschella writes, “linked to Al Qaeda” — would be a rich target for investigation and arrest, it would seem. So, why haven’t we heard of more than a scattering of arrests around the country of al Qaeda cells? Some of those which have fallen apart (the Detroit case, for one)? Surely if there were 4,000 US persons in the past four years “linked with al Qaeda,” who communicated directly with known al Qaeda terrorists, we should have vast sweeping arrests around the country and our papers would be full of these stories, the trials, the deportations, the threats averted…