Worldview Blog

An Assault on the Rule of Law

Obama and the Democrats have caved in to Bush and the Republicans by voting for a surveillance bill granting immunity to the telecoms for helping Bush to spy illegally on Americans in contravention of the 1974 FISA law. I'll allow experts like Glenn Greenwald to explain the details, but I'm posting this article to remind myself of the significance of a bill that may not seem so important on the surface. When the government spies without a search warrant, it clearly violates the letter and spirit of the 4th amendment and of the FISA law. What the latest bill does is to provide immunity to those who have violated the law, making it impossible to prosecute them. This is a direct attack on the rule of law, since without the ability to prosecute, the law is rendered impotent. Insofar as we are talking about a fundamental right enshrined in the Bill of Rights, all constitutional experts and civil libertarians are appalled, but not our corrupt Congress, nor our servile media, nor our clueless public. Even the seemingly progressive Obama, who explicitly promised that he would filibuster immunity, surrendered, as he seems to be doing on many of his primary campaign promises. By the way, note that Obama is a lawyer and a constitutional scholar!

As usual, the hawkish Republicans, along with their spineless Democratic acolytes, are playing the fear card in order to vitiate our basic rights and freedoms. The issue is not whether the government can spy on terrorists if there is probable cause. The issue is whether it must do so legally, in accordance with checks and balances that ensure that the government won't abuse its formidable powers to intrude on our lives. This principle is so fundamental that you would think it would be almost 'gospel truth' for any American claiming to be a mature citizen who believes in the Constitution. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case for our money-bought Congress and our brain-dead mainstream media. It takes a 'blogger' like Glenn Greenwald to sound the alarm to a small though educated audience. He may be a fine lawyer, but he doesn't have the media clout of a hack like Tom Friedman, and countless other similar pundits, who parrot the establishment line, who helped get us into the disastrous war in Iraq, and who have been paid handsomely for their failure. Truly, money is corrupting the entire political process, including the media.

FISA Already Stank

POSTED (11 July 08):  Let us be clear that the FISA bill was hardly perfect. It set up a special secret court that nearly always rubber-stamped the president's request for a search warrant to spy. For all practical purposes, there were already no real checks and balances under FISA, except that there was at least some kind of record that could be useful if a big scandal ever erupted. It is a sign of the radicalism of the Bush administration that it would not accept even the marginal oversight of FISA. This surely suggests that it had much to hide, and now it has got its wish. As discussed by Julian Sanchez, the true danger of wire-tapping is not so much privacy, as that it can be used for political purposes, as has already happened in our history.

Online Articles

Glenn Greenwald: Democrats capitulate on FISA (audio)

Glenn Greenwald: FISA: August 8, 1974 v. July 9, 2008

Glenn Greenwald: Surveillance crimes coverup and Obama

Glenn Greenwald: Congress votes to immunize telecoms

John Nichols: Obama votes to silence debate and pass FISA

Sen. Russ Feingold: The problems with the FISA bill

Julian Sanchez: Wiretapping's true danger

Chris Hedges: New FISA will cripple our press

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