It’s nice that the Bush administration is no longer making any attempt to hide its anti-democratic governing ruling philosophies.
The Bush administration has asked federal judges in New York and Michigan to dismiss a pair of lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program, saying litigating them would jeopardize state secrets.
In papers filed late Friday, Justice Department lawyers said it would be impossible to defend the legality of the spying program without disclosing classified information that could be of value to suspected terrorists.
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte invoked the state secrets privilege on behalf of the administration, writing that disclosure of such information would cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security.
The administration laid out some of its supporting arguments in classified memos that were filed under seal.
Heaven forbid we let cases by decided on their merits. No, that would allow it to come forth that the administration’s treatment of every single American as criminals has failed to produce any viable protection from terror threats.
The government breaks the law. Public defenders decide that is not acceptable. They file suit against the Bush administration. In a democracy like, say, America pre-September 11, 2001, this matter would got to court and upon hearing the evidence a judge would determine if the government broke any laws. No more.
Now “national security” has been redefined as the political security of George W. Bush. L’etat, c’est vous. So the administration’s front men ask the courts to stop considering cases that won’t in any discernible way damage national security - unless you buy that Al Qaeda doesn’t know that we eavesdrop on their communiques - but will visibly damage Bush’s political approval. After all, who wants a president who refuses to defend the Constitution he twice swore to protect?
No spying program makes America and her citizens safe. Our safety comes from a document written in 1787. Anything that infringes on the protections established then (and obviously including the Bill of Rights set forth in the four years afterwards) lessens our security. Anyone who buys the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance snake oil has already accepted that our lives and liberty are not worth anything more than the tomorrow’s sunrise. I like to think we can offer something more to posterity than our continued presence on the earth.
Technorati Tags: Bush, democracy, eavesdropping, constitution, terrorism
May 28th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
In some ways it is more frightening to see that the mask fell off and there is no attempt to pick it off the floor and put it back on.
It may simply mean this regime feels that the opinion of the masses is not significant enough to worry about in this case, or there will not be a grasping of what this really means by any significant part of the population.
What concerns me most is that they may be right.
May 28th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Don’t be so quick to dismiss the importance of “our continued presence on the Earth,” for removing us from this realm is the goal of every IED-concocting rejectionist. If “we” (and by that, I of course mean Americans) were eradicated, who would take our place? Canadians? Are tou really willing to live in a world with people who don’t know what bacon really is?
May 29th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Cooper — “the mask fell off and there is no attempt to pick it off the floor and put it back on.” I think that’s a remarkably apt encapsulation of what has happened. It’s not that there’s necessarily anything so shocking and profoundly new that is taking place, but that the efforts to conceal these illicit actions have been abandoned.
Rex — Touche, sir. Touche. Obviously as an American I want to see my country survive until the sun explodes a few billion years from now. The threats that confront us are real. But I wager that the responses our government has mustered, particularly in regards to the sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of national security, are more damaging to the sanctity of our nation than any IED, hijacked airplane, or even dirty nuclear bomb could be.
Terrorism isn’t about destroying a state, but rather making a state destroy itself. The only way these cave dwelling, regressive fuck nuts can win is if we remove the liberties that differentiate our citizens from the sort of society that they would dictate upon the world. I’m not prepared to move to a Wahhabi state in order to defeat one.