The Reason Why

If you've seen todays New York Times, you'll realize that the proposed "accord" over the administration's unlawful (and unconstitutional) wiretapping is much worse than it appeared to me in my last post.

As described in the Times, the legislation would permit wiretaps without the government ever having to obtain a warrant. The attorney-general would merely have to certify to a special subcommittee that the warrantless search is needed to protect the country. That certification would have to be repeated every 45 days. I haven't seen the legislation--I'm not sure it's even been written yet--but I'd bet a lot that there will be no provision permitting Congress or the courts to find out whether the attorney-general's certification has any basis in fact.

You might ask why "respectable" senators such as Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel, who have spent time and considerable political capital cultivating a certain distance from the Bush White House, would sign on to such an obvious cover-up. I can't speak from detailed knowledge, but I'd say it's this: They know, or at least have substantial reason to suspect, that if the true extent and nature of the surveillance done to date were to come to light, it would ignite a scandal that will make Watergate look like a tea party. In other words, these "moderate" Republicans are afraid for their own skins.

Consider this: Under FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), the government can wiretap for 72 hours without a warrant. Any prosecutor who can't get to a judge in 72 hours just isn't trying, and the Administration has never asserted that it has actually had any problem in obtaining a warrant. Moreover, the court has been quite compliant, approving all but a handful (in fact, W could count them on the fingers of one hand) of applications for warrants. Why, then, does the Administration insist that it can ignore the law--a position that any first-year law student who's been paying attention knows to be frivolous?

My suspicion is this: They want to avoid even the star chamber FISA court, because they've been carrying out surveillance that has nothing to do with national security, eavesdropping that would horrify even Americans who still believe that the government won't do bad things to them. For years, in their matchless arrogance, those at the top of what is supposed to be our government assumed that the truth would never be known. Now they are scared out of their wits, and they've terrified even those Republicans whom we might have expected to know better.

Will any Republicans (John McCain?) break ranks to defend the Constitution? Will enough Democrats show the spine to block this, even at the risk of being slimed on national security?

The Constitution is at great risk. I shudder at the possibilities.