Note to Mr. Bush: The U.S. is Not a Monarchy
- Joseph L. Galloway, Knight-Ridder newspapers -
Our forefathers created a system of government built on checks and balances
that they envisioned would protect a free people from abuses of their privacy,
their property and their liberty at the hands of anyone, especially anyone in
public office.
They never intended for an imperial presidency to rise above the legislative
and judicial branches of government, for they had their fill of kings and
emperors who ruled with absolute power in the old world. They knew that
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
They wanted none of this, and wrote a Constitution and Bill of Rights to
enshrine the protections they knew were needed to keep Americans free and
democracy healthy.
They crafted a system of government rooted in the principle that citizens
have rights and presidents violate those rights at their own peril.
Let us review the bidding as the dark year 2005 fades:
President Bush admits that he secretly ordered the government to eavesdrop on
American citizens, without recourse to the established legal methods of doing
that. He declares that he had and has the right to do so. Says who? Well, he
says so, and Vice President Cheney says so, and his attorney general, Alberto
R. Gonzales, says so too.
Some legal scholars beg to differ, arguing that the president has violated
federal law and has opened himself to impeachment for high crimes and
misdemeanors. They contend that he trampled the Constitution in a bid to expand
the powers of the executive branch and conduct the war on terrorism.
This is the same president, the same administration, that under cover of the
same wartime power grab declared its right to detain prisoners outside the
court system in secret foreign prisons and the right to use inhumane and
degrading measures in interrogating those prisoners in violation of the Geneva
Conventions.
In ordering the National Security Agency to intercept phone and e-mail
traffic of American citizens, members of the administration chose not to avail
themselves of a secret federal court established nearly 30 years ago to provide
the government the means to secretly investigate anyone believed to have ties
to foreign governments or movements that threaten the United States.
They say it is too cumbersome and slow to seek warrants from that court -
even though the court has granted such warrants in more than 17,400 cases and
only rejected them four times. They say they must move more swiftly - even
though the law permits them to eavesdrop for 72 hours before seeking a warrant
that is routinely and quickly granted.
Some suggest that the Bush administration's real reason for cutting the
secret court out of the loop is that some of the information they are basing
the secret wiretaps on was gotten through torture. The court warned early on
that it would not permit information gotten through extra-legal or illegal
methods to pervert the American court system.
Congress passed the law creating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
precisely because another president, Richard Nixon, bent the intelligence
agencies and the entire government to his will in pursuing those he considered
his enemies. If you made the Nixon enemies list, then your phones were tapped,
your comings and goings watched, your tax returns audited.
How big a leap is it from ignoring the rule of law in pursuing foreign
enemies to pursuing and punishing domestic enemies, those Americans who for
political reasons or reasons of principle oppose your aims?
The president and his vice president and his attorney general are saying,
essentially, trust us. We will not use our extra-legal powers against ordinary
Americans. We just want to protect you from further terrorist attacks. Trust
us. We are honorable men who have nothing but your well being at heart.
Sorry. That will not cut it. They have all the legal tools any president
needs already on the books for our protection. Congress makes the laws. The
judiciary interprets them. The president and all the rest of us live by them.
George W. Bush is not the emperor of America or the king of the 50 states of
the union. He, like us, must live by the rule of law. He is bound by the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the end, he works for us.
As Ben Franklin wrote more than two centuries ago: "Those who would give up
essential liberty in the pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither
liberty nor security."
December 22. 2005. Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent
for Knight Ridder Newspapers
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