![](\"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2012\/00columnists\/NewSiteColumnistPics\/Kerwick-Jack-column.jpg\")
Regardless of how it is constituted, whether it is \u201cdemocratic\u201d or otherwise, no government poses a larger threat to liberty than a government that is at war. \u00a0<\/p>\nRegardless of how it is constituted, whether it is \u201cdemocratic\u201d or otherwise, no government poses a larger threat to liberty than a government that is at war. \u00a0<\/p>\n
War is the mother of all crises and, as Rahm Emmanuel memorably \u2013 and rightly\u00a0\u2013 said, crises are pregnant with opportunities for politicians and activists that they otherwise wouldn\u2019t have. It is in moments of crisis, real or imagined, that government has its best opportunity to accumulate ever greater concentrations of power, for it is during crises that the people expect their government to assert itself in ways that wouldn\u2019t ordinarily be tolerated.<\/p>\n
Yet today\u2019s self-avowed \u201cconservatives\u201d advocate on behalf of not just war, but war without end, for \u201cIslamic terror\u201d is an amorphous container into which any number of contents can be inserted.<\/p>\n
Interminable war means, necessarily, the interminable growth of government.<\/p>\n
And where the expansion of government is interminable, so too is the diminution of liberty.<\/p>\n
Matters can\u2019t be otherwise, which is why it is at once exasperating and laughable that the very same people who indefatigably defended the so-called \u201cPatriot Act\u201d now act shocked that it has been abused by the Obama administration. If they had an iota of wisdom, they would have recognized way back when that the Patriot Act itself is a standing abuse.<\/p>\n
Instead, one of its authors, Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, maintains that he is \u201cextremely disturbed by what appears to be an overbroad interpretation\u201d of the law he crafted. In a letter to Eric Holder, Sensenbrenner asserts that while he is confident that the Patriot Act \u201cappropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights,\u201d he nevertheless \u201calways worried about potential abuses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are four things of which to take note here.<\/p>\n
First, whether \u201cwhat appears<\/em> to be an overbroad interpretation\u201d coincides with reality is left to be seen. The fact of the matter is that, overbroad or not, at issue is<\/em> an interpretation of the Patriot Act. The latter lends itself to precisely this kind of interpretation \u2013 as its critics noted back at the time of its birth.<\/p>\n Second, Sensenbrenner actually admits<\/em>, albeit inadvertently, that in drafting the Patriot Act, he felt the need to achieve a \u201cbalance\u201d or compromise between \u201ccivil rights\u201d \u2013 i.e. constitutional liberties \u2013 and \u201cnational security concerns\u201d \u2013 i.e. greater government power. To put it more bluntly, he concedes that the Patriot Act required trading off some of the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution in exchange for granting the government an even greater scope than it already possessed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Third, although he says now that he \u201calways\u201d had concerns about \u201cpotential abuses,\u201d Sensenbrenner was quite dismissive of critics who have expressed these same concerns.<\/p>\n In 2006, he said that not only did the Patriot Act have a \u201cstellar record\u201d of being abuse-free, but \u201ccongressional negotiators added more than 30 civil liberty safeguards not included in current law to ensure that [its] authorities would not be abused in the future.\u201d Sensenbrenner was indignant as he concluded that this is \u201cstill not enough for some.\u201d<\/p>\n As even he now recognizes, it was for good reason that his assurances were \u201cnot enough for some.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, legislation is just that. It is no more potent than the ink and paper of which it consists. Real conservatives, and real statesmen, have always known that the true laws and \u201cconstitution\u201d of a people are embodied in their habits and traditions. Legislation should distill this shared experience \u2013 and vindicate it. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Furthermore, paper laws, like paper constitutions, are all too susceptible to the predations of the power-hungry. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But Republican Sensenbrenner continues\u00a0\u2013 along with several of his fellow partisans\u00a0\u2013 to defend the Patriot Act and the entire NSA surveillance program. Take George W. Bush\u2019s former speech writer and Washington Post<\/em> columnist Marc Thiessen. \u201cSignal intelligence,\u201d Thiessen says, is the only feasible and effective way to \u201cprotect the country.\u201d Upon reminding us that \u201cthe programs exposed in these leaks did not begin on Barack Obama\u2019s watch,\u201d Thiessen declares that the current president\u2019s continuation of \u201cBush-era counterterrorism policy\u2026 is not an outrage \u2013 it is a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n That Obama is building upon Bush\u2019s already massive surveillance program may very well be a \u201cvictory.\u201d<\/p>\n But it is a victory for the champions of Gargantuan Government \u2013 not the lovers of liberty.<\/p>\n