A scary assault on civil liberties

By Lance Dickie

As historians tally the incompetence, profligacy and lawless opacity of the Bush administration, a shorthand is already emerging: Katrina, Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, signing statements and epic debt. Each reference speaks volumes.

Another topic may soon head the list: FISA, surveillance or domestic spying. A word or two will settle into the political lexicon to symbolize an assault on civil liberties by an administration with an aggressive disregard for the law. We will be haunted by this for generations.

Congress gave the White House permission to eavesdrop without warrants on international telephone calls and e-mails of American citizens. The Bush administration had sought to tinker with wiretap regulations it was already ignoring, when Congress essentially said, “Oh, what the heck, do what you want.” The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in 1978, required the executive branch to seek permission of a secret judicial panel to spy on Americans at home and people overseas if the surveillance took place inside the United States. Revisions and new definitions adopted last week remove virtually all restrictions, and, most incredibly, empower the attorney general and director of national intelligence to settle disputes about what is legal and proper.

Attorney general, as in Alberto Gonzales, whose favorite responses to Congress are “I don’t know” and “I do not recall.” Partisan appointees become arbiters of two centuries of constitutional protections against a potentially intrusive, abusive federal government.

These rules and exceptions are set to expire in six months, but expect to be disappointed.

House and Senate members were easy pickings as they worried more about summer vacation than civil liberties. In 2008, they will be squeezed again by a looming election.

I will admit it took me way too long to grasp the implications of the “war on terrorism” invoked by President Bush.

Early on, I was dismayed by the rhetoric of an “axis of evil,” but initially I read no more into the war reference than a speechwriter’s device.

Little did I suspect the president was using his own version of shorthand to declare and embrace unimaginable perquisites of executive authority. None of the rules or laws applied to him, and an acquiescent Republican Congress was never going to confront him.

Voters understood, and tossed out a legislatively inept, lazy, corruption-prone GOP majority.

They could not pass a budget, and they refused to challenge the president over a war of choice built on fear and delusions.

I expected better from Democrats and, so far, have not been impressed.

Confronting terrorists and others who would do harm to this nation and its laws and democratic ideals is a real fight. Taxpayers spend lavishly to provide the resources. It was the Bush administration, not American taxpayers of all political stripes, that failed to properly equip the nation’s military in two war zones.

But I also believe the rough and tumble of ferreting out and stopping terrorism is a specialized kind of crime-fighting, best suited to the skills and tools of law enforcement. Police operate within a set of procedures and regulations, and legal checks and balances adapted to stop crime and protect the rights of the innocent.

Both efforts are always a tense, dynamic work in progress.

Consider the pre-Miranda days. Failure to advise suspects of their rights led to a lot of sloppy results. In the absence of rules, the tendency is to get lazy. That’s a scary thought when dealing with institutions that can deprive citizens of their liberty and lives.

Crime-fighting did not stop because law enforcement had judges and a Constitution looking over its shoulders.

The United States is launched on a path of domestic spying with the rules decided by government clerks. An arrogant, demonstrably incompetent administration is empowered to do what it wants, never having to explain itself or be held accountable by anyone.

The Bush administration cannot get body armor and rifle-cleaning kits to Iraq and Afghanistan, yet it can tap phone calls and rummage through e-mails as it sees fit.

Scarier still, the brash intention or seductive efficiency of operating without oversight will not evaporate with a new crew in the White House.

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