The Posturing of His Majesty
Vice President Cheney said today, "If we’d been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon. They were in the United States, communicating with al Qaeda associates overseas. But we didn’t know they were here plotting until it was too late." The "this" he’s referring to is Bush’s spy program on US citizens. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400973.html)
I have sat dumbfounded over the holidays as the President and his minions have gratutiously defended their practice of breaking the FISA law and authorizing spying on communications of Americans. They SWEAR they only look at communications of people who call Al Queda members or who might be in a mysterious cell phone of Osama Bin Laden found in a cave in Afghanistan. This "assurance" is from the same folks who pumped intelligence suggesting that Iraq had WMDs in their haste to rush America into war. They lied to us then, and I would not be surprised if they lied to us now. In fact, unless I see proof to the contrary, I assume that most statements out of this President’s mouth on a controversial topic are lies.
I hate feeling like this about my government and my president. And yes, I acknowledge that Bush is my President, as much as I don’t like that fact. Yet, time after time, Bush has lied to us about important things regarding Iraq and the war on terror. Why should he tell the truth now? That leopard in the White House is NOT going to change his spots.
Now that Bush has been caught putting the Constitution into a shredder, he’s mad that he got caught. So the Justice Department is launching an investigation to ferret out whomever leaked to the NY Times and punish them, probably by taking them as "enemy combatants" and then "rendering" them to whatever secret gulag we have had the CIA set up in God-knows-where. I hope that the NY Times won’t give up their sources. Whomever exposed this program to them is a patriotric American who upheld his oath as a federal employee to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC." (Emphasis mine - pledge is real…I took it the day I started my job with the federal government.) As a federal employee, this person pledged to protect the CONSTITUTION not the President. When the President is breaking the law, it is the DUTY of every good citizen to expose it if he/she has the means to. I can’t imagine anything more frightening than taking on Bush and his minions, but I pray that God protects the person who did.
A common tactic in the talking points of the Right is to say, "Well, if you don’t have anything to hide, you won’t be spied on." They then usually say, "Go ahead and listen to my phone calls and read my email! I have nothing to hide." Implying, of course, that to object to this illegal spying means that not only are you an active member of an Al Queda cell within the United States but that you must have something to hide, since you obviously have Osama on speed dial. It’s a bullying tactic and intellectually dishonest. Of course, no one objects to spying on people who are talking to terrorists or frequently calling suspicious numbers in foreign countries we are pretty sure have ties to terrorists. But this is NOT a monarchy, and Bush can’t just run off and do this with no accountability. There MUST be oversight, even if it is retroactive. Let him run off and do his spying, but under our system of government, he MUST justify his actions later. We should not and cannot allow a President to just spy on whomever he pleases for whatever reason he deems fit. It’s also a good check to make damn sure that the President is spying on people for good reason, not just because they oppose him. I suspect that Bush is doing both…spying on people calling Pakistan (which is fine if he can justify it to a court) as well as people who are his political opponents.
That he refuses to acknowledge that Congress has the right to demand oversight of his actions by adjusting the law to suit his stated needs shows that Bush has no respect for the law or the Constitution if it gets in his way. We have a president who refuses, in any matter REMOTELY related to the war on terror, to obey the law. If that doesn’t frighten my fellow Americans, it should. I would ask my friends on the right….if Hillary or Bill were doing this very thing and justifying it the same way, how would you react? I think that answer is obvious. Yet, I hope that my friends on the left would join the condemnation of a Democrat doing this very spying that Bush is doing. It’s inexcusable, no matter what your party affiliation.
And it doesn’t stop there. In the budget for FY06 just passed before Christmas, Bush made a remark about the McCain amendment banning torture by the United States (full story: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-much-for-presidents-assent-to.html) Basically, Bush told Congress they could screw themselves and that he was going to torture anybody he damn well pleases if he believes it might help his war on terror. Congress can pass all the laws it wants, Bush basically said, but it won’t stop him from doing what he pleases. His Imperial Majesty has spoken!
In this budget, there were also Graham amendments (named for Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - Republican, of course). Bush is reading these amendments to the law to cut off HABEAS CORPUS (which is the right to be brought before a judge to be sure that your detention is lawful) appeals currently under consideration to cut off currently pending habeas cases, including most importantly the Hamdan case that’s now before the Supreme Court. This, of course, is blatantly UNCONSTITUTIONAL. If you doubt me, look up Article I, Section 9, which places limits on Congressional power. To whit, "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. " So before you go screaming that Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, he did it during the Civil War which qualifies as a "rebellion" under the Constitution. In this war on terror, we are neither under invasion NOR are we facing a rebellion…and one of these conditions is required before we even consider whether public safety requires such a move. It will be interesting to see the Supremes deal with this argument. I’m sure Souter, Stevens, Ginsberg, Breyer, O’Connor and Kennedy will see it for the unconstitutional move that it is. But if Scalito is put on the Supreme Court soon, he will have a vote, and it appears from his writings that he thinks Bush can do whatever he wants under his "Commander in Chief" powers. Question is…what will Scalia and Thomas do? What about Chief Justice Roberts? How willing are they to allow the President to shred our Constitutionally protected liberties in the name of "stopping terror"? This should be a slam dunk 9-0 decision telling Bush that he is NOT above the Constitution and to sit down, shut up, and realize his powers are LIMITED. But will it? We shall see.
If we sit idly by and surrender our Constitutional liberties to Bush in the name of safety, we will deserve neither liberty nor safety (somewhat quoting Ben Franklin, I think). Emperor George has no clothes, and we must make him realize this before it’s too late.
