Norm Coleman's privacy disconnect

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has a significant disconnect when it come to your privacy. One one hand he supports the Bush Administrations warrantless wiretapping of American's phone calls and emails. On the other hand he is deeply concerned about the government losing people's private data.

Two high-ranking senators want to know when agencies will fully implement the Bush administration’s requirements to protect personally identifiable data.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters to 24 Cabinet agencies Feb. 22 requesting a written timeline for when they will meet all four requirements laid out by the Office of Management and Budget in a June 2006 memo.
(Federal Computer Week)

So does government bureacracies losing citizens' private data fit Norm's limited circumstances when he supports oversight?

• When it is someone or some institution that conservatives hate. Norm relentlessly pursued corruption in the United Nations Iraq Oil for Food program.
• The second circumstance is when conservatives have thrown one of their own under the bus to avoid answering bigger questions. Heckuva Job Brownie is the perfect example.
• The third circumstance is oversight where conservatives will not be targeted or in any way harmed. For example, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s (SIGIR) oversight of U.S. efforts in Iraq.

It appears bureacrats losing private data fits the first and third qualification: Republicans want to shrink government until it can be drowned in the bathtub and no Republicans will get hurt by this crackdown.

You know Norm would never miss an opportunity to spew some Norm-speak^TM upon the masses, so brace yourselves:

Coleman and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) asked the GAO to look into how agencies were handling security in 2006 after the disclosure that a Department of Veterans Affairs external hard drive containing Social Security numbers and other personal information on millions of veterans had been stolen from the home of a VA employee. The drive eventually was recovered by police.

"The findings released in this report are very troubling -- indicating that agency after agency has failed to make securing citizens' personal information a high priority," Coleman said in a statement. "We need to know when the agencies are going to have the protections in place to stop the numerous data breaches we have seen over the past few years."

The loss or theft of personal data can inconvenience or embarrass the people whose information is compromised, but the biggest concern is the potential for identity theft and other fraud. In 2006, identity theft of all varieties -- not merely cases associated with federal data breaches -- accounted for $49.3 billion in losses to people and organizations nationwide, according to the GAO report.
(Washington Post)

What's disengenous about Norm's quote has nothing to do with the fact that it is outrageous that the government doesn't have better data protection. It's what's been missing throughout the duration of Norm's senate tenure. It's that Norm has completely dropped the ball on protecting us from the Bush Administration devious and constitution-shredding destruction of our right to privacy.

Norm was the chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2005 when the NY Times broke the wiretapping story. He could have called anyone before his committee and made them testify under oath. He held no hearings. He completely abrogated his oversight responsibilities. He merely repeats the conservative talking point that the Bush Administration is working hard to protect America. Benjamin Franklin provided the best retort when he said that "those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

Evidence arose in 2006 that the Bush Administration was wiretapping Americans prior to 9/11. Yet, Norm either ignored it or couldn't be troubled by it if he did hear about it.

In the months before 9/11, thousands of American citizens were inadvertently swept up in wiretaps, had their emails monitored, and were being watched as they surfed the Internet by spies at the super-secret National Security Agency, former NSA and counterterrorism officials said.

The NSA, with full knowledge of the White House, crossed the line from routine surveillance of foreigners and suspected terrorists into illegal activity by continuing to monitor the international telephone calls and emails of Americans without a court order. The NSA unintentionally intercepts Americans' phone calls and emails if the agency's computers zero in on a specific keyword used in the communication. But once the NSA figures out that they are listening in on an American, the eavesdropping is supposed to immediately end, and the identity of the individual is supposed to be deleted. While the agency did follow protocol, there were instances when the NSA was instructed to keep tabs on certain individuals that became of interest to some officials in the White House.
(Truthout.org)

So when Norm talks up how "very troubling" this danger to our privacy is, take it in context. The last sentence in the following quote is amazingly ironic:

“The findings released in this report are very troubling – indicating that agency after agency has failed to make securing citizens’ personal information a high priority,” Coleman said in a statement. “The clock is ticking and we need to know when the agencies are going to have the protections in place to stop the numerous data breaches we have seen over the past few years. The bottom line is the federal government has a responsibility to ensure the personal information it collects from its citizens is properly secured and protected.”
[emphasis mine]
(Federal Computer Week)

At least the data the Bush Adminstration is harvesting in the massive computers at the NSA isn't getting lost or anything. Well ... at least as far as we know ...