- When The New York Times revealed that President George
Bush had authorized warrantless surveillance of Americans, the Bush administration
reacted in its usual manner: attack and then stage a public-relations campaign.
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- The attack was in the usual jingoistic mode, implying
that both the Times and its source, a whistle-blower at the National Security
Agency, were providing aid and comfort to the enemy and undermining the
war on terror.
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- That's garbage, of course. Any terrorist with more than
a two-digit IQ knows that the NSA has the means to intercept any electronic
communication. Terrorists don't need to read the Times to figure that out.
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- The reason it is important for the American people to
know is because the president appears to have violated both the law and
the Constitution. A recent Zogby poll revealed that 52 percent of Americans
think that if this is proven to be true, then the president should be impeached.
This is a most serious issue.
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- It goes to the question, Is the president above the
law? The answer, if we wish to maintain our free republic, must be no.
Hence, the public-relations campaign, which consists of the president and
his minions fanning out to make speeches asserting that what he did was
both legal and necessary. The operative word is "asserting."
An assertion is not a fact. It is merely a claim. What it all boils down
to is, "Trust me." The American people have no way of verifying
if, in fact, the surveillance is limited to people actually making contact
with actual terrorists.
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- As to the legality, that's plain. What the president
did was illegal. Some act does not become legal just because some hired
lawyers say it is. The act must be measured against both the law and the
Constitution; Bush's act was illegal and unconstitutional.
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- Some years ago, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act. It sets up a special court that can issue warrants authorizing
surveillance of Americans. This court has routinely issued the warrants
and even gives the government 72 hours in which it can get a warrant after
the fact. In other words, if what Bush says about only surveilling people
with known ties to terrorists is true, then he would have had no problem
getting the warrants.
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- Gen. Michael Hayden, now deputy director of national
intelligence and former director of the National Security Agency, was trotted
out before the press to justify this and, frankly, made a fool of himself.
When someone raised the issue of probable cause, the general petulantly
denied that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution requires probable
cause. Then he said that the standard is reasonable, and added that nobody
was more familiar with the Fourth Amendment than the NSA.
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- Well, he's dead, flat wrong.
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- Here's the text of the Fourth Amendment: "The right
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and
the persons or things to be seized."
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- What the Bush administration is saying is, to hell with
the Bill of Rights. We are changing the standard. No probable cause and
no oaths or affirmations are needed. All that is needed is if we personally
decide that search and seizure is reasonable. By that standard, no police
department in the U.S. would need to bother with search warrants.
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- Sorry, but the Constitution cannot be amended by arrogant
public officials who don't wish to bother with it. The Constitution is
the supreme law of the land, and if the American people allow it to be
violated at will, then they will deserve the loss of liberty that will
surely follow. We do not need to become a dictatorship just to catch terrorists.
Nor does a declaration of war (which Bush, by the way, doesn't have) suspend
the Constitution.
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