He's a president, not
a monarch
By JOSEPH GALLOWAY,
Knight Ridder Newspapers,
From the star-telegram.com
December 26, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Our forefathers
created a system of government built on checks and balances that they envisioned
would protect a free people from abuses of their privacy, their property and
their liberty at the hands of anyone, especially anyone in public office.
They never intended for an imperial presidency to rise above the legislative and
judicial branches of government, for they had had their fill of kings and
emperors who ruled with absolute power. They knew that absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
They wanted none of this, and wrote a Constitution and Bill of Rights to
enshrine the protections they knew were needed to keep Americans free and
democracy healthy.
They crafted a system of government rooted in the principle that citizens have
rights and presidents violate those rights at their own peril.
Let us review the bidding as the dark year 2005 fades:
President Bush admits that he secretly ordered the government to eavesdrop on
American citizens, without recourse to the established legal methods of doing
that. He declares that he had and has the right to do so. Says who?
Well, he says so, and Vice President Cheney says so, and his attorney general,
Alberto R. Gonzales, says so too.
Some legal scholars beg to differ, arguing that the president has violated
federal law and has opened himself to impeachment for high crimes and
misdemeanors. They contend that he trampled the Constitution in a bid to
expand the powers of the executive branch and conduct the war on terrorism.
This is the same president, the same administration, that under cover of the
same wartime power grab declared their right to detain prisoners outside the
courts in secret foreign prisons and the right to use inhumane, degrading
measures in interrogating those prisoners in violation of the Geneva
Conventions.
In ordering the National Security Agency to intercept phone and e-mail traffic
of American citizens, members of the administration chose not to avail
themselves of a secret federal court established nearly 30 years ago to provide
the government the means to secretly investigate anyone believed to have ties to
foreign governments or movements that threaten the United States.
They say it is too cumbersome and slow to seek warrants from that court -- even
though the court has granted such warrants in more than 17,400 cases and
rejected them only four times. They say they must move more swiftly --
even though the law permits them to eavesdrop for 72 hours before seeking a
warrant that is routinely and quickly granted.
Some suggest that the Bush administration's real reason for cutting the secret
court out of the loop is that some of the information it is basing the secret
wiretaps on was gotten through torture. The court warned early on that it
would not permit information gotten through extra-legal or illegal methods to
pervert the American courts.
Congress passed the law creating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
precisely because another president, Richard Nixon, bent the intelligence
agencies and the entire government to his will in pursuing those he considered
his enemies. If you made the Nixon enemies list, your phones were tapped,
your comings and goings watched, your tax returns audited.
How big a leap is it from ignoring the rule of law in pursuing foreign enemies
to pursuing and punishing domestic enemies, those Americans who for political
reasons or reasons of principle oppose your aims?
The president, his vice president and his attorney general are saying,
essentially, trust us. We won't use our extra-legal powers against
ordinary Americans. We just want to protect you from further terrorist
attacks. Trust us. We are honorable men who have nothing but your
well being at heart.
Sorry. That won't cut it. They have all the legal tools any
president needs already on the books for our protection. Congress makes
the laws. The judiciary interprets them. The president and all the
rest of us live by them.
George W. Bush is not the emperor of America or the king of the 50 states of the
union. He, like us, must live by the rule of law. He is bound by the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the end, he works for us.
As Ben Franklin wrote more than two centuries ago: "Those who would give
up essential liberty in the pursuit of a little temporary security deserve
neither liberty nor security."
Joseph L. Galloway is senior military correspondent for Knight
Ridder Newspapers.
jgalloway@krwashington.com.
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