Pellicano Should Claim His Wiretaps Were A Matter of National Security

October 13 2007 by The Systemic Analyst.

Anyone who has spent time around young children can tell you, a child who has just learned the concept of “an accident” applies the notion to every unpleasant incident for some time afterwards in a bid to avoid responsibility for their actions. “It’s a matter of national security” increasingly seems to be the adult world equivalent for a child’s “It was an accident” to avoid any further inquiry into or accountability regarding the given topic.

Not to make light of a serious topic, but one can’t help but wonder if private investigator Anthony Pellicano can’t use the same get-out-of-jail-card-free as the NSA or Bush administration when it comes to wiretapping.

Pellicano is up on a “111-count indictment that accuses him of bugging phones and bribing police to get information on celebrities and others.” Perhaps if he argues that his quest for intelligence on such famous persons was simply a matter of national security, his name might be cleared. Surely, the Federal Communications Commission would be hard-pressed to disagree with such claims after using the card itself last week, refusing “a House lawmaker’s request to investigate whether a federal warrantless wiretapping program violated telecommunications laws, saying such an investigation would “pose an unnecessary risk of damage to national security,” as CNN has reported.

It is, however, only a matter of time until the wider public begins to question the excuse. Unfortunately, when such a shift in perspective occurs it will be difficult to convince people to accept any new measures proposed in the name of security whatsoever. Hopefully, leaders will become aware of the potential pitfalls of prevailing mentalities around security and adopt new, more sensible, approaches before it is too late.

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