It\u2019s now painfully clear that the president has put out a contract on the Fourth Amendment. And at the Capitol, the hierarchies of both parties are stuffing it into the trunks of their limousines, so each provision can be neatly fitted with cement shoes and delivered to the bottom of the Potomac.<\/p>\n
Some other Americans are on a rescue mission. One of them, Congressman Justin Amash, began a debate on the House floor Wednesday with a vow to \u201cdefend the Fourth Amendment.\u201d That\u2019s really what his amendment \u2013 requiring that surveillance be warranted \u2013 was all about.<\/p>\n
No argument for the Amash amendment was more trenchant than the one offered by South Carolina Republican Jeff Duncan, who simply read the Fourth Amendment aloud.<\/p>\n
To quote those words was to take a clear side:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Edward Snowden\u2019s heroic revelations have made it possible for some House members from both parties to blow away the fog that shrouds so much tap dancing on Capitol Hill. When the Amash amendment went to the floor, there was no place left to hide.<\/p>\n
To their historic shame, 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats voted against Amash\u2019s amendment (while 94 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted for it). That\u2019s how the measure lost, 217-205.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0record of the House vote<\/a>\u00a0tells us a lot. Top Republicans \u2013 including Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy \u2013 voted with Obama policies to keep smothering the Fourth Amendment. So did top Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.<\/p>\n
The stench at the pinnacle of GOP power hardly surprises most Democrats. But on civil liberties \u2013 as on so many other profound issues \u2013 a similar odor is emanating from the upper reaches of Democratic power on Capitol Hill, where Pelosi and Hoyer are far from the only Democrats who have become reflexive servants of indefensible Obama policies.<\/p>\n
Consider some of the other Democratic luminaries in the House who voted against the Amash amendment: The Democratic National Committee\u2019s chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee\u2019s former chair Chris Van Hollen. The DCCC\u2019s current chair, Steve Israel.<\/p>\n
Some of the other Democrats who voted no on the Amash amendment include progressive-aura lawmakers like Ami Bera (Calif.), Joaquin Castro (Texas), Luis Gutierrez (Ill.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Joe Kennedy (Mass.), Annie Kuster (N.H.), Nita Lowey (N.Y.) and Louise Slaughter (N.Y.)<\/p>\n
Deserving special mention for their deplorable votes against Amash\u2019s amendment are Sheila Jackson Lee from Houston and Jan Schakowsky from Chicago. Both are vice chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been critical of the Progressive Caucus for enabling Obama\u2019s rightward moves by doing scant pushback. But credit where due: on Wednesday, aside from Jackson Lee and Schakowsky, the other six officers of the Progressive Caucus and a large majority of its more than 70 members supported the Amash amendment. Eloquence in the floor debate came from John Conyers (the lead co-sponsor of the Amash amendment), Jared Polis, Zoe Lofgren and Jerrold Nadler.<\/p>\n
Yet they were no match for the White House, with its\u00a0media spin<\/a>\u00a0machine and behind-the-curtain arm twisting.<\/p>\n
President Obama has a firm grip on levers of power, and anyone who thinks that his administration has been chastened enough to tread more carefully on civil liberties is engaged in wishful thinking.<\/p>\n
While the House has grown somewhat restive, the Senate has remained notably pliant for the surveillance state. An egregious \u2013 and, for some, surprising \u2013 example is Al Franken, who\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0his support for the NSA surveillance program when news of it broke in early June. \u201cI can assure you, this is not about spying on the American people,\u201d Franken said. From his Senate office,\u00a0one<\/a>\u00a0press release after\u00a0another<\/a>\u00a0has been packed with blather like overstuffed sausages.<\/p>\n
Franken\u00a0is now\u00a0saying<\/a>\u00a0he\u2019ll introduce a bill for \u201ctransparency\u201d because the public will support the current surveillance programs if they grasp what\u2019s really involved: \u201cI think that if there were greater transparency, Americans would have a better understanding of these programs.\u201d\u00a0Count on\u00a0transparency<\/i>\u00a0to be a buzzword cloak for more of the same.<\/p>\n
Another Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, has been vastly more candid. At a forum the day before the Amash amendment vote, Wyden said that for surveillance, as far as the Obama administration is concerned,\u00a0\u201cthe authority is essentially limitless.\u201d<\/p>\n
An ACLU staff attorney,\u00a0Alexander Abdo, was driving at the same point when he\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0days ago:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPerhaps the most fundamental problem with the\u00a0NSA\u2019s constitutional theory is that it has no limit. If the constitution is blind to the collection of our data and limits only the NSA\u2019s later uses of it, then the NSA truly can \u2018collect it all\u2019 now and ask questions later. Our emails, phone calls and internet activities would all be very simple for the NSA to collect under the NSA\u2019s theory. But it could go much further. It could put video cameras on every street corner, it could install microphones in every home and it could even remotely copy the contents of every computer hard drive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
All three branches of the U.S. government are now largely under the control of forces with stunning contempt for basic legal processes required by the Bill of Rights. Mere words and mild reforms from members of Congress may mollify the gullible, but only a direct challenge to the Obama administration\u2019s policies can rise to the level of the current historic imperative to restore civil liberties in the United States.<\/p>\n
Norman Solomon<\/strong> is co-founder of RootsAction.org<\/a> and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include \u201cWar Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n