Whatever else he may or may not be, Bush is strategic: what better vehicle for delivering himself sweeping, unchecked “inherent” presidential power than through an appeal to national security in an area — electronic surveillance — where public-opinion polls indicate that Americans are most willing to sacrifice civil liberties in exchange for perceived security? The dirty little details of surveillance law are sufficiently esoteric and legalistic that the average citizen remains largely in the dark, distracted by siren calls of security. After all, who isn’t in favor of protecting America when all that is at stake is privacy? Why worry about a little wiretapping when you know that you are doing nothing wrong?
But granting Bush — or any president — sweeping, unchecked power in direct violation of a statute would open a Pandora’s box of imperial possibilities. There are other areas where the president has run up against either a congressional statute (consider the bipartisan anti-torture legislation recently enacted at the behest of Arizona senator John McCain) or an attempt by the Supreme Court to limit presidential power (the court’s decision in the summer of 2004 requiring hearings for those held as “enemy combatants” at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba). That’s why Bush is reaching beyond Congress and the courts in an effort to convince the American people that he needs special power to protect them.
If Bush wins this round, the next step will almost certainly be a claim to presidential power to engage in torture or executive detention of citizens with neither charge nor trial nor time limit. Precedents sometimes have unwelcome consequences. But in this case, the consequences are not wholly unpredictable, and we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned. Unless this unprecedented claim of unfettered presidential power to eavesdrop is stopped in its tracks, there will be no logical stopping point for taking a principled stand to protect our most essential liberties in the future.
Harvey Silverglate is a lawyer and frequent “Freedom Watch” contributor.
___
Email the author:
Harvey Silverglate:has@harveysilverglate.com
Related:
Stop whining and do your job, Dumb and dumber, 100 Unsexiest Men of the Year Follow-Up, More 
- Stop whining and do your job
A president with a history of antipathy toward the media complains openly about the “knee-jerk liberal press.”
- Dumb and dumber
When it comes to Iraq, Bush has become a dictator. The nation is going to have to come to terms with this fact.
- 100 Unsexiest Men of the Year Follow-Up
The problem with dropping our Unsexiest list in March of an election year is that we never know what kind of weasels, Republicans, and Republican weasels will urinate in America’s stream of consciousness down the final stretch.
- Senators fight snooping
President Bush authorized spying on US citizens without bothering to seek the approval of a federal court. A Maine senator is leading the charge to find out why.
- Can Bush be beaten?
This article originally appeared in the November 15, 1991 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
- Bush’s high crimes
President Bush’s penchant for authoritarianism — for executive power unchecked by either Congress or the courts — has been laid bare by his aggressive and unapologetic defense of the indefensible: the secret surveillance of Americans without warrants.
- Dance, monkey: Josh Gondelman
She’s an adorable human pod concealing an unidentifiable intergalactic devil-spawn species of peanut.
- Iraq: Five years later
Five years later, President George Bush and his minions were wrong about the need to fight in Iraq, wrong about the way to fight in Iraq, and wrong about what the war in Iraq would ultimately cost.
- Political art
Tucked inside President Bush’s stinker of a 2009 budget are a series of proposals that would shamefully cut funding for the arts.
- Vote for Obama
If ever there were a need for clarity — of purpose and resolve — it is now.
- On the national affront
Where does one begin to recap 12 months of such willful self-parody?
- Less
Topics:
News Features
, Politics, U.S. Politics, George W. Bush, More
, Politics, U.S. Politics, George W. Bush, Domestic Policy, Political Policy, John McCain, Constitutional Law, Law, Espionage and Intelligence, U.S. Armed Forces, Less
