The George W. Bush Guide to Secret Government
 

January 19 2006
Counterbias.com
SCOTT C. SMITH
  

You know, I get the impression that George W. Bush really doesn't understand the concept of checks and balances as it relates to government. I think he really believes his government is an autocracy, and has used the attacks of 9/11 to justify an alarming abuse of power by the executive branch. Bush believes that, since we are at war, the Constitution essentially grants him unlimited power to protect America. But we're not at war -- Congress hasn't declared war -- and what we're supposedly at war with is a noun. Terrorism. Ostensibly to prevent another 9/11 attack from happening. However, the Bush administration does not strike me as a bunch of people with their act together, and they are power-mad. Secret military courts, holding suspects indefinitely without benefit of counsel, suspending the Fourth Amendment in the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists -- all this and more to present the illusion of safety, the illusion of security.

Despite all of our efforts, Osama Bin Laden remains at large, and the Bush administration would rather just put their collective heads in the sand and pretend the man doesn't exist anymore. For all we know, he is regrouping with his operatives in planning another attack. And what we do know about Al-Qaeda is that they our patient, willing to wait years before carrying out an attack, and the 9/11 Commission recently gave the Bush administration poor marks in homeland security preparedness. The report, issued on Dec. 5, 2005, gave the administration "more F's than A's," 41 grades in all to measure the progress of the Administration in implementing security proposals by the 9/11 Commission.

According to the Associated Press, former 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said, of the Commission members, "We're frustrated, all of us are frustrated at the lack of urgency in addressing these various problems," problems including the failure to provide a communications infrastructure for first responders to communicate with each other in a crisis, or the fact that cargo is still being placed into airplanes without being x-rayed, not to mention our wide-open cargo ports.

Bush did have one tool up his sleeve in combating terrorism: the wiretapping, without a warrant, of people with alleged connections to Al-Qaeda, using the NSA to monitor phone calls and e-mails.

Bush claims his authority as President of the United States gives him the legal and constitutional authority, because, well, darn it, we're at war with a noun, and if we have to shove the Fourth Amendment aside in the hopes that someone in the United States is sending IMs to Osama Bin Laden and we catch them, isn't that a good thing?

Not so much, according to the Congressional Research Service, which issued a report on Jan. 6, concluding that the Bush administration's justification for wiretapping without a warrant conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.

No big surprise there, eh?

The report stated that Bush probably could not claim the broad presidential powers he did after 9/11, as Congress had not expressly intended those powers. The Congress authorized Bush the use of military force to combat terrorism after 9/11.

"It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the authors of the CRS report wrote, also concluding that the Bush administration's legal justification for the wiretaps "does not seem to be . . . well-grounded (in law)."

I have my doubts that any report concluding that what the Bush administration's wiretapping program was illegal would result in any change in the program. Bush will do what he wants, for as long as he wants, while there is a Republican majority in Congress, not to mention right-wing cheerleaders like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, whom I suspect would find a way to defend Bush if the man was secretly volunteering time at Planned Parenthood or scamming tribal casinos of millions of dollars.  There seems to be only a handful of Republicans who have openly criticized Bush and his administration's programs. Benjamin Franklin quite possibly had predicted the state of U.S. politics, circa 2006, when he said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." And thanks to the sheep of the "red" states, which blindly support Bush as if he were royalty, our government is moving slowly but surely down that path. Welcome to the Bush autocracy.  Ironic how we’re working so hard on establishing a democracy in the Middle East when we cannot seem to get it right here in the United States.

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About the author:  Scott C. Smith is a regular contributor to Counterbias dot com.  In addition to Counterbias, Scott is a writer and editor for the web magazine Blogcritics dot org.  Scott also engages in biased, partisan attacks at his blog, “What’s In Scott’s Head,” at Scottcsmith dot net.