|
Another Milestone on the Road
to Serfdom
BY Scott Horton
08/03/08 "Harpers"
-- -- This weekend, the darkness continues to descend in
Washington, the powers of the state continue to grow and the
mechanisms of accountability rot away unused. Americans are
focused on the selection of a new president. Many of them share
the naïve assumption that on January 20, 2009, when a new leader
takes the oath of office from the south steps of the Capitol
Building, the Founders’ constitutional order will once more be
set aright and the extra-constitutional excesses of the Bush
years will be but a bad memory. But whoever is installed as the
new guardian of presidential power will not likely part with
many of the rights that Bush claimed and was allowed to use,
unchallenged.
And this weekend, we should
regard the three remaining candidates from a more skeptical
predicate. This weekend, the curtain of tyranny descends further
in Washington. The Bush regime, bolstered by a surging 17%
public acceptance in one poll, moves more closely towards a
façade of legality for its national surveillance state. It
acknowledges its abuse of other legislation and will suffer no
consequences for that abuse, and in a symbolic coup de grâce,
Bush will veto the latest Congressional prohibition on
torture–for indeed, torture is the very talisman of his
unchecked rule and his arrogant indifference to the rule of law.
And in the midst of this, where, this weekend, are the three
presidential finalists? They busy themselves with the
accumulation of delegates for their march on the White House.
They will mutter fine sounding words on the campaign
trail—sentences will glimmer with “freedom” and “liberty”—but
they will offer no action that shows those words have content.
The FISA Farce
In 2006, a Democratic Congress was elected with a mandate to
hold Bush’s excesses in check—indeed to roll many of them back.
But this, it appears, was little more than campaign
sloganeering. When it comes to the gravest challenges, the
Democratic leadership knows only surrender. Here is
Glenn
Greenwald’s glance behind the scenes at the planning of the
Democratic leadership:
The current draft does not
contain telecom immunity (solely for temporary strategic
reasons — see below), but incorporates every substantive
warrantless surveillance provision of the Rockefeller/Cheney
bill passed by the Senate, with several small and worthless
exceptions that they’ll try to sell to what they obviously
think is their stupid base as some vital “concessions”:
-The House bill has a 4
year-sunset provision rather than the Senate’s 6 years;
-It provides for an audit by
the DOJ’s Inspector General of the “Terrorist Surveillance
Program” (the only change that I would describe as something
other than worthless);
-It contains a provision
stating that the bill is the “exclusive means” by which the
President can conduct electronic surveillance (the same
provision that FISA has now which the President violated,
and which the Senate refused to insert into its bill); Nancy
Pelosi was trying just yesterday, lamely, to sell this
provision as some sort of vital safeguard;
-The bill mandates some
minimal re-review of some of the provisions in 2009; and,
-It contains some mild
changes to some of the definitions (the specifics of which I
don’t know).
The plan of the House
leadership is to pass this specific bill in the House, send
it to the Senate (where telecom immunity will be added in by
the same bipartisan Senate faction that already voted for
immunity), have it go back to the House for an
up-or-down-vote on the House-bill-plus-telecom-immunity
(which will pass with the support of the Blue Dogs), and
then compliantly sent on to a happy and satisfied President,
who will sign the bill that he demanded.
The bill was drafted with
the participation of, and input from, Nancy Pelosi and
Silvestre Reyes, at the very least. Reyes, of course, was
last seen on CNN meekly pleading with Wolf Blitzer to give
him a few more days to come up with a capitulation plan, and
is now making good on his commitment to Blitzer (while
violating all of the tough, defiant statements he had been
making when pretending to take a stand against warrantless
eavesdropping and for the rule of law).
So the bill is not far removed
from the White House’s request, and even the telecom immunity
provision will emerge through some carefully choreographed
maneuvers (the main object will be, of course, to obscure
exactly how it got into the legislation—the Democratic
leadership is conscious of the strong grassroots opposition to
this provision, and keen to avoid a backlash. Not, of course,
that this will do more than slow them down a few weeks in
catering to the interests of their telecom friends.)
And all of this occurs as
another engineer has come forward to blow the whistle on the
lawless surveillance of telecommunications by the Bush National
Surveillance State.
Babak Pasdar, a computer
security consultant, has gone public about his discovery of
a mysterious “Quantico Circuit” while working for an unnamed
major wireless carrier. Pasdar believes that this circuit
gives the U.S. government direct, unfettered access to
customers voice calls and data packets. These claims echo
the disclosures from retired AT&T technician Mark Klein, who
has described a “secret room” in an AT&T facility.
The name of the wireless carrier
that collaborated in the installation of the “Quantico Circuit,”
allowing the Bush Administration to spy on every phone
conversation, text message and other communications it
transmits, with no warrants or prior approval? Verizon.
Michael McConnell will of course
insist that the intelligence community is looking only at
foreign communications involving suspect terrorists. And that
statement is a lie. In fact the technology employed allows the
indiscriminate filtering of all communications of all types. And
as to what portion is actually examined with any particularity,
on that particular point, we’re told “trust us.” But why? I
suggest we repose our trust elsewhere, namely: in the
Constitution.
Surveillance is not outlawed.
But it is bound to a system of constraints and checks. The
Administration must justify its targets and must be subject to
the oversight of a magistrate. That is what the Founding Fathers
provided. And there is no reason to move from this system; what
has transpired over the last six years provides only more
evidence of its wisdom.
The NSL Scam
One of the extraordinary powers expanded in the USA PATRIOT Act
relates to a device called a “National Security Letter” by which
the Justice Department was effectively granted the power to
issue its own warrants, unchecked by courts, cloaked by immense
secrecy, and divorced from the duty to account. It was a formula
for abuse, and indeed, the abuse has been rampant. First,
Attorney General Ashcroft insisted that secret warrants had only
ever been used a handful of times, and never with respect to
libraries. That, of course, was untrue. Ashcroft knew even as he
uttered those words that the number of uses had stretched into
the thousands. He was counting on a Congress that no longer took
its oversight function seriously, and he was right.
Then, FBI Director Robert
Mueller came forward to correct Ashcroft’s “mistake” and to
insist that the problems had since been cleaned up with internal
accountability mechanisms. That also sounded like a
silver-tongued lie.
And on Thursday, Mueller again
came before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and again
acknowledged that abuse was widespread. Here’s how
the Washington Examiner reported it:
The FBI improperly used
national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on
Americans during terror and spy investigations, Director
Robert Mueller said Wednesday. Mueller told the Senate
Judiciary Committee that the privacy breach by FBI agents
and lawyers occurred a year before the bureau enacted
sweeping new reforms to prevent future lapses.
Details on the abuses will
be outlined in the coming days in a report by the Justice
Department’s inspector general. The report is a follow-up to
an audit by the inspector general a year ago that found the
FBI demanded personal data on people from banks, telephone
and Internet providers and credit bureaus without official
authorization and in non-emergency circumstances between
2003 and 2005.
Mueller, noting senators’
concerns about Americans’ civil and privacy rights, said the
new report “will identify issues similar to those in the
report issued last March.” The similarities, he said, are
because the time period of the two studies “predates the
reforms we now have in place.” He added: “We are committed
to ensuring that we not only get this right, but maintain
the vital trust of the American people.”
Mueller offered no
additional details. Several other Justice Department and FBI
officials familiar with this year’s findings have said
privately the upcoming report will show the letters were
wrongly used at a similar rate as during the previous three
years.
So, more promises unkept. The
abuse festers, and indeed, there is not even a down-turn in the
rate of abuse. And how do the argus-eyed guardians of the public
weal in the Senate Judiciary Committee react to all of this?
Condemnation? Demands for new hearings? No. They react with
total silence. They don’t even venture a few extra questions.
The Torture President
And all this simply clears the path for Bush’s shining act of
glory set for later today. He will veto the intelligence
authorizations act of 2008 because it clarifies, for the third
or fourth time now, that acts of torture are a violation of the
law. But George W. Bush is the law, and he will not hear any
differently from this Congress. Indeed, Bush’s claim to be the
law is manifested in one thing above all others, and that is his
power to torture. By defending and upholding this right, Bush
shows that unlike generations of predecessors in the White
House, he is King. He sets the law, and his will determines how
it will be enforced and against whom. That is his own, very
personal vision of “justice,” measured in terms of personal
prerogative and power. Torture is the measure and definition of
his authority as a President with monarchical pretense.
So Bush will veto the latest
anti-torture legislation, and it will have no effect. Or rather,
his veto will be cited as yet another instance in which his
personal will triumphs over the Law.
The curtain continues to fall
over American democracy. Americans understandably are sickened
by the tragi-comedy that spreads itself across this stage. But
their faith in another presidential election and another leader
is misplaced. They need to reserve their faith not for the new,
but for the old: for the constitutional model that the Founders
left. It needs to be forced to work. And all those who undermine
it must be held to account. That includes the should-be
watchdogs, who slobbering at the prospect of a few drug-drenched
sirloins hurled their way, are failing in their duty to protect
their true masters: the American people.
We live in the age of the Great
Betrayal, in an age in which too few are willing to state the
obvious. There is still time to check the progress of tyrannical
power, but the hour grows late, and the sounds of alarm no
longer seem to register with a somnolent populace
© The Harper's Magazine Foundation
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments
Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse
and meaningful commentary. Do not include
personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling
outside our guidelines – those including
personal attacks and profanity – are not
permitted.
See our complete
Comment Policy
and
use this link to notify us if you have concerns
about a comment.
We’ll promptly review and remove any
inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
