What's so funny about police states loving to act underhandedly?
The Bush administration released a lengthy legal document yesterday arguing that the President's powers under the Constitution constitutes a Congressional "trump card" that renders any legislative attempt to curtail the Excutive Branch's actions as null and void. Specifically they were referring to the 1978 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) that was put in place to stop rampant and egregious domestic espionage acts by the last out-of-touch-and-control Republican president, Richard Nixon.
I woke up in a generous mood, so rather than just dismissing this argument as the diluted legal product of a self-serving and insular group of well-fed and priviledged white men, I thought about it.
Why is warrantless domestic espionage so bad?
Deep in my heart I don't believe that the Justice department and NSA are really trying to listen to each of us bitching about taxes or even about the President. Things arent' that far gone. They're probably doing what they say they're doing, monitoring calls going to and from shaky mideast countries. The intelligence that they've gained is probably useful occasionally and it might actually help stop a terrorist plot. I have enough faith in America and Americans that more and more insiders will rebel if the program is abused for non patriotic reasons.
So?
Liberals and Conservatives, the denizens of the outer political wings, tend to use "slippery slope" arguments to explain why they don't like something that by itself is not too harmful, but taken to an extreme is devastating. Moderates hate this argument and bitterly attack it, calling it alarmist. We've all had it before.
It applies here, though. Unchecked domestic espionage is bad enough, because it will be used for non intelligence reasons eventually. Nixon did. They'll use it against critics of the Administration, reporters and any other dissident and dissernter, because in the rarified air of the Olympian White House, we all look like ants, and as such, we're either helping the hive or we're enemies.
The more compelling reason to be against this though, is because of the legal justification that they're using. It is an odious and unAmerican argument that should be stomped now, once and for all. This tautology of superpresidential power can be used to legitimize any action. Any action at all that's used for "wartime".
And by the way, if we're at war, how about capturing Bin Laden and ending it?
Posted on January 20, 2006
