Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Illegal Wiretapping is Illegal
We must fight to force Bush II to accept the rule of law...to accept that he must not spy on Americans without Constitutionally mandated oversight from the Congress and the Judiciary. Republican Senator Arlen Spector seems to be the only Senator with real power fighting for American civil liberties. The Democrats can do virtually nothing because they do not control congress. Senator Spector's attempt to fashion legislation is hampered by the fact we still do not know what the Bush Administration is actually doing. His legislation is also pointless until the Bush Administration either agrees, or is forced, to accept the rule of law, and accepts that its executive powers are not limitless. We must have a full investigation and find out exactly what the Bush Administration is doing. Under questioning by Senator Joeseph Biden before Arlen Spector's committee Attorney General Alberto Gonzalas admitted that he could not certify that the full extent of the NSA wiretapping program has been disclosed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601001.html.
We do know that there are other domestic spying programs including illegal Pentagon spying http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24010res20060201.html and illegal spying by the FBI and the JTTF http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24011res20060131.html. There seems to be a pattern of violating basic American civil liberties here.
Many Americans believe that we must chose between being tough on terrorists and protecting our Constitutional Fourth Amendment rights. This simply is not true. It is true that we must be tough on terrorists. It may even be true that the FISA law may need to be updated. There will doubtless be some Republicans who will use the same tired line that we Democrats are soft on terrorists. But fighting for American civil liberties - as our founding fathers fought for American civil liberties - has nothing to do with being soft. The Republicans have all of the power in this government. Why does there only seem to be one that is really fighting for us?
This (Bush admins spin) idea that we should not be concerned about domestic spying as long as we have nothing to hide is ridiculous. He, or some future president, could use this awesome power to spy on political rivals, and use the information to political advantage, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. He, or some future president, could use this excessive Unconstitutional power to spy on journalists in order to get advance warning of negative news stories so that he can be prepared to lie and politically spin the situation, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. "Power corrupts." If this massive, unbalanced, power is successfully gathered into the Presidency, with no Judicial oversight - with no Congressional oversight - with absolutely no checks and balances... some future President will abuse it. ¶ 7:51 PM
We do know that there are other domestic spying programs including illegal Pentagon spying http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24010res20060201.html and illegal spying by the FBI and the JTTF http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24011res20060131.html. There seems to be a pattern of violating basic American civil liberties here.
Many Americans believe that we must chose between being tough on terrorists and protecting our Constitutional Fourth Amendment rights. This simply is not true. It is true that we must be tough on terrorists. It may even be true that the FISA law may need to be updated. There will doubtless be some Republicans who will use the same tired line that we Democrats are soft on terrorists. But fighting for American civil liberties - as our founding fathers fought for American civil liberties - has nothing to do with being soft. The Republicans have all of the power in this government. Why does there only seem to be one that is really fighting for us?
This (Bush admins spin) idea that we should not be concerned about domestic spying as long as we have nothing to hide is ridiculous. He, or some future president, could use this awesome power to spy on political rivals, and use the information to political advantage, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. He, or some future president, could use this excessive Unconstitutional power to spy on journalists in order to get advance warning of negative news stories so that he can be prepared to lie and politically spin the situation, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. "Power corrupts." If this massive, unbalanced, power is successfully gathered into the Presidency, with no Judicial oversight - with no Congressional oversight - with absolutely no checks and balances... some future President will abuse it. ¶ 7:51 PM
