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[Cross-posted from Feingold for Illinois.]

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has Senator Russ Feingold’s statement made yesterday on the federal government’s possible data mining of American communications :

“One element of the NSA’s domestic spying program that has gotten too little attention is the government’s reportedly widespread use of data mining technology to analyze the communications of ordinary Americans. Today I am calling on the Director of National Intelligence, the Defense Secretary and the Director of the NSA to explain whether and how the government is using data mining technology, and what authority it claims for doing so. Data mining is a new, unproven and intrusive technology in the counterterrorism context, and we need to know how it is being used, how effective it is in finding patterns of terrorist activity, and whether there are sufficient safeguards to protect the privacy of Americans. We can and must fight terrorism aggressively without infringing on the privacy of law-abiding Americans.”

The senator made the statement after sending a letter to the National Intelligence Director, National Security Agency Director, and the Secretary of Defense asking about the nature of the program (pdf).

Meanwhile, today’s New York Times has dissembling by the Bush Administration.

Josh Micah has a good discussion of two possibilities in the NSA wiretapping, either it was “shady” or it was “garden-variety wiretapping,” a seemingly odd explanation “that squares with my sense of this group in the White House. And that is that they have an ideological affinity - perhaps even a compulsion - for presidential assertions of extra-constitutional authority. Just on principle. That is their mindset. It informs countless actions over the last five years. Still, it’s not enough.”

Perhaps I’m missing something (feel free to correct me) - but why couldn’t there be two programs going on? One high-tech, which everyone suspected and is now rejecting on the word of General Michael V. Hayden, the other traditional. That could explain the “unprecedented” collection of leads the FBI had to go through that had supposedly been filtered (i.e. there were supposedly even more potential leads). A technological collection device might also explain the poor lead quality the FBI complained about. And why should we take General Hayden’s word on it being more traditional? President Bush has already lied in public about the wiretapping - why should General Hayden be given the benefit of the doubt? If both types of collection were used - you could always claim it was normal wiretapping to cover the high-tech - arguably you might even be telling the truth if you parse things well. Absolutely this is speculation on my part - but it might explain a number of things. That said, Josh is right about the Bush Administration’s “ideological affinity - perhaps even a compulsion - for presidential assertions of extra-constitutional authority.” This is a case where a variety of things can all fit together nicely to get you where you want to go…if you’re the Bush Administration.