The real spying story

Clarence Page blows away the smoke to get at the story behind the story of Bush's outrage over news coverage of his warrantless spying.

Bush would rather distract us from the larger story lurking here, which is the return of Total Information Awareness, a massive databank operated by a Pentagon agency under Iran-contra figure John Poindexter to monitor any check-card purchase, bank transaction, medical bill and other electronic transaction in America. Congress took away that program's funds in September 2003 amid public alarm about the dangers it posed to privacy rights.

But its research funding continued. The National Journal reported earlier this year that Team Bush broke up the program and moved part of it to the National Security Agency. As Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, recently opined, the "spawn" of the old program has continued under new names and new secrecy.

Governments traditionally use fear of terrorists or some other subversions of national security to excuse power grabs. It is for that reason that the Bush administration, like any other, needs to be held accountable for what it does in the name of keeping us safe. Instead of making its case to Congress, the courts and the public, Team Bush is treating accountability like one more threat to national security.