The issue here is not whether the president should conduct surveillance on the terorrists' communications. Everyone agrees that such surveillance is necessary.
The issue is whether it's OK for the President to run roughshod over the law and the Constitution to do such surveillance.
Don't let the Republicans change the subject. The law provides for such surveillance. There's a Court specially set up to issue warrants for such surveillance. In an emergency, the president's people can even do the surveillance first and get the warrant second.
But the Bush administration has never shown any reason why they could not protect this country AND follow the law. And it does make you wonder: why didn't they do it legally?
The British authorities got the legally-required warrants for all the surveillance they did to break up the alleged terror plot in their country. Why has the Bush administration been unwilling to do likewise in America?
Since no court issued a warrant, we don't even really know who they were spying on. Was it only terrorists, or was it political opponents, too? We just don't know.
In America, we're not supposed to wonder about things like that. Our Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution that requires warrants so that we can be sure that the invasion of people's privacy serves a legitimate national purpose.
As for Bush's surveillance, maybe it served a legitimate purpose and maybe it didn't. Only the president and his men know for sure. They say "Trust us." But "Trust us" is precisely what our Founding Fathers said was NOT the way to maintain our liberties and our security.
Now a judge has declared that no one --not even the president, indeed, with all his power, ESPECIALLY not the president-- is above the law.
Don't believe the Republicans when they say that this decision is a decision against protecting our country. It is precisely the opposite: it is about protecting this country against both terrorists from outside and against unchecked presidential power inside.
We don't have to choose between being protected from the terrorists and being a nation ruled by law. Shame on the Bush administration for pretending that the two cannot readily go together. Shame on the Bush administration for trampling on the law.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
Conservatives have always advanced the idea that the masses are too stupid for self-rule and many intellectuals agree with that assertion . . . up to a point. And lawlessness is that point.
Every group of people from tribes to nations need leaders to establish and maintain order, and every society has traditions, customs, taboos and laws to achieve that end. No matter the form of government a society adopts, there are going to an "elite" who rule. Problems arise when the "elite" see themselves as above the law, which they invariably do. That's human nature and the unsolvable conundrum that every society has to confront.
Democracy was devised to mitigate that conundrum, so we're back to self-rule. In spite of their many weaknesses, blunders, and irrational twists and turns, democratic societies are adaptable and self-correcting. Autocratic societies are not adaptable and self-correcting.
The regime presently ruling the United States are trying to impose autocracy to perpetuate their dominance by usurping the rule of law. That is the definition of lawlessness.
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Friday, August 18, 2006 at 5:05:35 AM
I have been perplexed by this issue for some time. I don't want to fall into the "just trust us" camp. Yet I wonder how we can deal with the technology of today that the terrorists have and not have some change. How can we get a wiretap on these prepaid throw away cell phones that apparently often used up before a warrant could be issued? I hate the idea of the government taking away our freedoms. But it seems like there needs to be some change that allows the NSA or whichever agency to take immediate action to monitor terrorists.
by
Tom Dawson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Friday, August 18, 2006 at 11:58:36 AM
2 comments
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