Now we learn that Bush secretly authorized domestic spying of civilians without a warrant. As usual, we wait for the public to rise up as one and demand his ouster. But, as usual, there's a problem -- and we have to fix it.
Pretty much all of us here know that grinding the Fourth Amendment into a fine powder this way is unconstitutional -- and seemingly impeachable. But to the average apolitical American ("A3"), that conclusion may not be immediately obvious. After all, they might reason, isn't the President's first duty to protect Americans? And couldn't this help? Here's a way to get through to them the enormity of what's going on here: the President's order allows the government to blackmail its domestic enemies. More across the fence:
When Republicans argue -- as they have recently done, still do, and are always gonna -- that we need to put this Administration's scandals behind us as soon as they've been discovered, they ignore the educational function of scandals. Learning the terrible things that the government (and private actors, to be sure) have done in the past helps open our eyes to what they may be expected to do in the future. One scandal that seems to have largely disappeared down the national memory hole -- not among civil libterarian activitists, but among the A3 population as a whole -- is how the FBI used information it collected during the regime of J. Edgar Hoover.
I won't review all of what Hoover did here; you can start with this quote from Hoover's Wikipedia entry and Google your way on from there:
Hoover amassed significant power by collecting files containing large amounts of compromising and potentially embarrassing information on scores of powerful people, especially politicians, which were kept separate from official FBI records. On his orders, the files were destroyed immediately after Hoover's death. In the 1950s, evidence of Hoover's apparently cozy relations with the Mafia became grist for the media and his many detractors, after famed muckraker Jack Anderson exposed the immense scope of the Mafia's organized crime network, a threat Hoover had long downplayed. Hoover's retaliation and continual harassment of Anderson lasted into the 1970s. Hoover has also been accused of trying to undermine the reputations of members of the civil rights movement and the Black Panther Party.
Presidents Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson each considered firing Hoover, but concluded that the political cost of doing so would be too great.
Political blackmail based on secretly collected information has, without question, occurred in the U.S. Thanks to Bush's executive order, it would be even easier to collect information that could support blackmail today. As Lord Acton's maxim that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" invites us to conclude, if it can be done, that means it will be done.
And, in fact, we have no basis to conclude that it hasn't been done since this started in 2002. When we wonder about a quiescent and compliance press corps, watchdogs that sit around scratching fleas, and the like, this becomes a one-stop shopping site to look for possible answers as to why.
Everyone, good and bad, has their secrets that they don't want to see the light of day. Hoover tried to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. with tapes of King's extramarital sexual exploits. King stood up to him, and no one dared publish the tapes. (That would not be a problem these days; Drudge would have them posted in twenty seconds.) I think that A3s can understand this. I hope they can also come to understand that you can blackmail people not only to stifle criticism and win elections, but to support your campaign contributors, turn a blind eye to wrongdoing, etc., as well. (Not that the Bush Administration and its supporters wouldn't want to do both. Why stop at embezzlement when you have extortion available as well? Blackmail is just bribery in the coin of retaining one's reputation.)
Domestic spying with warrants is problematic enough, depending on how difficult warrants are to obtain. Domestic spying without warrants means declaring open season for political blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover knew that the two went hand in hand. As this scandal unfolds, let's make sure that the American people keep this in mind as well.
I end with a disturbing poll question worth a moment of your time. I was bothered by my own answer. I'm happy that -- for now, at least -- answers are anonymous.