Who is Morton Halperin and why is he supporting the FISA compromise

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Morton H. Halperin. McNaughton’s deputy had general supervisory authority over the project. In 1969, he moved from the Pentagon to Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council staff. The FBI, acting without a court order, wiretapped numerous conversations between Halperin and Ellsberg. (AP/ Wide World Photos)

Hunt and Liddy were, of course, “the plumbers,” who had been recruited by the White House to stop leaks in the Pentagon Papers case. They had burglarized the psychiatrist’s office in September 1971, prior to their break-in at the Watergate in June 1972.

Nor was that all. Without a court order, the FBI had wiretapped telephone conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg. The tapes and logs of the wiretaps had “disappeared” from the files of both the FBI and the Justice Department.


http://www.afa.org/magazine/feb2007/0207pentagon.asp

Question 1) Who is Morton Halperin

a) Close Friend of Daniel Ellsberg

He was a friend of Daniel Ellsberg. When Ellsberg was investigated in connection with the Pentagon Papers, suspicion fell on Halperin, who some Nixon aides believed had kept classified documents when he left government service. John Dean claimed that Jack Caulfield had told him of a plan to fire-bomb the Brookings Institution, Halperin's employer, to destroy Halperin's files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Halperin

b)Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

Halperin served in the Department of Defense in the 1960s as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and was dovish on the Vietnam War, calling for a halt to bombing Vietnam. When Nixon became president in 1969, Henry Kissinger, his new National Security Advisor announced Halperin would join the staff of the National Security Council. The appointment of Halperin, a colleague of Kissinger's at Harvard University in the 1960s, was immediately criticized by General Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; FBI director J. Edgar Hoover; and Senator Barry Goldwater.

Kissinger soon lost faith in Halperin. A front page story in The New York Times on May 9, 1969, stated the United States had been bombing Cambodia, a neutral country. Kissinger immediately called Hoover to find out who might have leaked this information to the press. Hoover suggested Halperin and Kissinger agreed that was likely. That very day, the FBI began tapping Halperin's phones at Kissinger's direction. (Kissinger says nothing of this in his memoirs and mentions Halperin in passing about four times.) Halperin left the NSC in September 1969 after only nine months but the tapping continued until February 1971. Halperin was also placed on Nixon's Enemies List.

c) Number 8 on Nixon's enemies list

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/370010_wiretap09.html

I was No. 8 on Richard Nixon's "enemies list" -- a strange assemblage of 20 people who had incurred the White House's wrath because they had disagreed with administration policy. As the presidential counsel John Dean explained it in 1971, the list was part of a plan to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." My guess is that I earned this dubious distinction because of my opposition to the Vietnam War, though no one ever said for sure.

d) long time critic of Bush's illegal wire tapping

Two years ago, I stated my belief that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program and disregard for domestic and international law poses a direct challenge to our constitutional order, and "constitutes a far greater threat than the lawlessness of Richard Nixon."

That was not a casual comparison. When I was on the staff of the National Security Council, my home phone was tapped by the Nixon administration -- without a warrant -- beginning in 1969. The wiretap stayed on for 21 months. The reason? My boss, Henry Kissinger, and the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, believed that . . .

e) a target of illegal government wiretaps

. . . I might have leaked information to The New York Times. Even after I left government, and went to work on Edmund Muskie's presidential campaign, the FBI continued to listen in and made periodic reports to the president.


f) major academic and Director of U.S. Advocacy Open Society Institute

Halperin holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Yale University. He received his B.A. from Columbia College
The recipient of numerous awards, Halperin also serves as the Senior Vice President and Director of Fellows at the Center for American Progress. He is Chairman of the Board of the Democracy Coalition Project. He is also the Chairman of the Board of the Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University. He serves on the boards of DATA and the Constitution Project (where he is also a member of the Liberty and Security Committee)<1>, and is the chair of the Advisory Board of the Center for National Security Studies

g) Director of the ACLU Washington office

He spent many years at the American Civil Liberties Union, serving as the Director of the Washington Office from 1984 to 1992, where he was responsible for the national legislative program as well as the activities of the ACLU Foundation based in the Washington Office. Halperin also served as the Director of the Center for National Security Studies from 1975 to 1992, where he focused on issues affecting both civil liberties and national security.Halperin, as Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) office in Washington, defended the right of the The Progressive magazine to publish details on how to construct an atomic bomb.

Question 2) Why is he supporting the FISA compromise

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/370010_wiretap09.html

a) There is another piece of legislation that is much worse that already has the necessary votes

The fact is that the alternative to Congress passing this bill is Congress enacting far worse legislation that the Senate already had passed by a filibuster-proof margin, and which a majority of House members were on record as supporting.

b) It creates Congressional oversight (where it used to be exclusively the territory of the Executive branch)

What's more, this bill provides important safeguards for civil liberties. It includes effective mechanisms for oversight of the new surveillance authorities by the FISA court, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and now the Judiciary Committees. It mandates reports by inspectors general of the Justice Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies that will provide the committees with the information they need to conduct this oversight. (The reports by the inspectors general will also provide accountability for the potential unlawful misconduct that occurred during the Bush administration.)

c) It expands protections for Americans overseas

Finally, the bill for the first time requires FISA court warrants for surveillance of Americans overseas.

Concluding sentiments by Halperin


The compromise legislation that will come to the Senate floor this week is not the legislation that I would have liked to see, but I disagree with those who suggest that the Democrats (including Barack Obama) are giving in by backing this bill.

As someone whose civil liberties were violated by the government, I understand this legislation isn't perfect. But I also believe -- and here I am speaking only for myself -- that it represents our best chance to protect both our national security and our civil liberties. For that reason it has my support.
Morton H. Halperin is the executive director of the Open Society Policy Center. Copyright 2008 The New York Times.




Here are Halperin's previous testimony before the House Committee of the Judiciary as the Director of U.S. Advocacy
Open Society Institute


http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/090507halperin.pdf

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/03/b1507441.html

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/nsa_surveillance.pdf