(Yet Another) Day of Shame

The craven Congress helped the Bushites push America one large step closer to totalitarian dictatorship and the destruction of the U.S. Constitution yesterday. The New York Times says it simply:

"President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States. They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation."

It's hard to say which is worse: the provisions of the law, or the way it was enacted. The provisions make none other than Alberto Gonzales, rather than even the previous (and already repugnant) "secret court" of at least bona fide judges, the final arbiter of what is and isn't legal and Constitutional about the wireless wiretaps. It may immunize those responsible for these outrages against the Constitution from prosecution later. The way it was enacted was at the last minute before Congress left for recess, with extreme pressure and fear-mongering rhetoric from the Bushites.

The hardest to swallow is that it could not have happened without a sizable number of Democrats in the Senate and the House capitulating. Apparently told there was a terrorist attack on America planned this summer, they would be responsible if it happened. And once again they chose the politics of fear over the Constitution they are sworn to defend.

It's important to say however who "they" were. Those who voted for this law did not include any of the Democratic candidates for President now in Congress. "They" did not include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Before the vote, I wrote to Speaker Pelosi with one question: "if you don't stand up for the Constitution, who will?" In her public remarks, she stated her concern that the Constitution was being violated, and she immediately issued a letter calling for the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees to draft new legislation for consideration immediately after the recess. “Many provisions of this legislation are unacceptable, and although the bill has a six month sunset clause, I do not believe the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken,” she wrote.

Rep. Jerold Nadler had this to say during the debate:

"I do not believe we will soon be able to undo this damage. Rights given away are not easily regained. This bill is not needed to protect America from terrorists. The only purpose of this bill is to protect this administration from its own political problems and cynicism, and its own illegal actions it has taken outside the law without any authorization."

Yet Congress caved to a President so mistrusted by the people that it's doubtful he could get elected to the school board in Florida or even Texas. And Congress endorsed these powers less than a week after the FBI used a "classified search warrant" to break into the offices of a former Justice Department lawyer suspected of leaking information exposing this very warrantless wiretap program. The Secret Police are already at the door, and Congress legitimizes them.

It is (yet another) day of shame, and another step towards our 9/11 Nineteen Eighty-Four.