Bush and Those Wiretaps

He’s wrong of course, but I doubt that the majority od Americans care. The ‘secret’ wiretaps that the President so vigorously defended today are not essential to the defense of America. Bush always couchs his arguments in absolutes: as in ‘these wiretaps are saving lives and are therefore essential’. He is indulging in his favorite tactic which is to defend something that sounds so right, but is in fact not what he’s accused of doing. In this case he did something he didn’t even need to.

Here’s the story: Bush has allowed the NSA to execute a number of wiretaps against American citizens here in the U.S. without any legal authorization. Now he doesn’t need to do that because there is a frequently used and well tried legal way to get the same result, notably the secret court that exists specifically to facilitate such activity for domestic security agencies. So: if such a court exists, and operates secretly and successfully, as it has for years, why does Bush all of a sudden need to go around it? The only reason seems to be that he wants to extend the power of the executive branch of government so that he needs no legal sanction at all for anything he wants to do. That sounds dangerous, not because of Bush, but because it erodes the balance of power and civil rights that are central to the American way of doing things. We are supposed to be defending that way of life.

Bush constantly undermines the American way of life by harping on personal safety: he says he is defending American lives [as in ‘lives will; be lost if the Patriot Act is not passed’]. He uses scare tactics to force us into aquiescence, he uses wartime imagery to get legislation passed and to build support, and then pretends that in war no lives are lost. We cannot have it both ways: protecting the American way of life is worth losing lives over. Not just abroad, but here too. Imagine if the Founding Fathers had put personal safety ahead of their desired way of life. They understood that freedom is not a virtue for the timid. That’s the American heritage the President is entrusted with, but he which fails to understand. Instead he interprets his role simply as the defender of lives. He plays to America’s frailty intead of to its strength. So he feels justified in throwing overboard the very thing he’s supposed to be defending. Which is why he makes mistakes like this illegal wiretapping. He should be held accountable.

Addendum:

Bush attacked the New York Times for breaking this story about illegal wiretapping. Apparently the White House had kept the Times from publishing the report for about a year. Now he’s angry, and claims that publication will cost lives. He says that wiretaps keep ‘our enemies on the run’. That sounds more like the old Soviet Union than America. It’s also scary.