Let's see.
Team Bush and their mob-lawyers spend an awful lot of time looking for loopholes in the Constitution and the civil code, don't they?
They have rendered to themselves the power to 1) spy on, 2) apprehend, 3) imprison, 4) torture, 5) disappear any citizen it sees fit and can execute the entire process without a shred of oversight or accountability.
That IS despotism.
Anyone arguing that this jibes with the Founding Fathers intent is insane. This is precisely what the Founders sought to make impossible.
The "9-11 changed everything" defense is still no excuse for the continuing infringement of due process. As every Judge in the world will tell you - If you don't like a law, you work to change it - you don't just break it. Why does Team Bush keep arguing as if critical needs cannot be secured except by illegal means? Have they even tested that proposition?
Of course, they ensure us that there's been no impropriety, just known contacts of Al Qaeda - my, oh, my why are there are so many known contacts still running around?
You see, as with everything Team Bush has done since coming into office, it is not necessarily the bold faced series of deceptions, lies and illegalities they have perpetrated that riles people as that they have so little to show for it:
- Had Iraq been a brilliant success no one would have given a damn about how we got in there.
- Had homeland security and FEMA succeeded at the time of Katrina no one would have given a damn about the cronyism and the 100s of millions wasted shoring up the front companies of your political allies.
- Had enhanced homeland security actually produced results....what's a few wiretaps and a bit of torture if we're smashing terrorist cells and defusing those ticking bombs.
But it is the landscape of incompetence and policy failure that Bush is taking heat for. The sense that all these self-declared powers, these WMD lies, have not produced results is what is now causing Bush to be taken to account. In fact the scale of unchecked powers insisted on by the President seems to grow in tandem with its own incompetence and corruption
What saved Bush I and Reagan's ass back during Iran-Contra was that the public found it hard to grasp and they were comforted by the - IMHO - misguided belief that it had all worked out for the best - thwarting evil commies in Latin America.
But while Iran-contra was a sideshow back then, this is all Team Bush has, and they no longer seem to be in control of anything they've started.
These exigent powers are balanced by the sheer corruption and incompetence that are simultaneously being displayed. I mean, it's harder to surrender one's liberties to people who seem tainted by a host of ethical shortcomings. Shouldn't that alone be reason for a big collective "Whoa - hang on a minute"?
A great number of Americans have gone beyond wondering if Bush lied here and there to wondering if he ever, EVER tells the truth. The current barrage of clips of him talking about how everything is being done legal and with warrants is chilling given how smarmy he looks. The man is lying and he is enjoying it.
"Trust us" is no longer as reassuring as it once was.
What we must remember though is that in their singularity each and everyone of these abuses might be forgiven - but to have them all - stacked one on top of the other - amidst suspicions of war profiteering, crony capitalism and the unjustified expenditure of tens of billions of dollars makes us look like one of those archetypal banana republic whose ruling kleptocracy silences or imprisons it's critics as "enemies of the state" while truckloads of national treasure head off for Switzerland.
Are we there yet?
I wonder.
Since the FBI and the Pentagon have determined that a broad range of civil, domestic dissent is aligned with terrorism, how far is it to assume a similar bleed isn't occurring across the board, over at the NSA? Indeed, one may even assume that such broad purview over domestic affairs is precisely the reason for seizing such powers.
If these powers were being applied with due respect to the stated intent (ie protect American lives by thwarting terror plots) why is the process so intent on avoiding accountability at every stage of it.
Again, American citizens can be spyed on, apprehended (kidnapped), imprisoned, tortured and ????? That's an important question - since in such a scenario its far easier to just terminate the innocent then it is to re-insert them back into the real world. It is the logical end of such a system - with absolutely no oversight or accountability at any stage.
Are these the powers we wish to grant anybody, let alone managerial incompetents?
ANOTHER reason why the existence of such secretive channels poses problems is that this grey world so loved by the neo-cons is also an excellent means of penetrating and corrupting our national security. Although rarely discussed the nature of spying is greatly assisted by the cover such operations provide. This parallel, privatized, presidential justice system is the perfect entree for foreign agents seeking to manipulate, or exploit our National Security apparatus. The cloak of secrecy, while promoted as a necessity for security, in fact, may, provide the perfect cover our enemies need. This is a far more important issue than is credited. (I haven't seen a single mention of it anywhere)
In fact, one might begin to wonder if Team Bush hasn't been infiltrated at every level by people pursuing agendas of personal gain or ideology - people who can be corrupted and who can, under cover of National Security work to subvert the National interest and defraud the public purse. Indeed, I have seen some compelling speculation that Team Bush has already been manipulated by such foreign interests. (One wonders if zealous Rapturites intent on ushering in Armageddon count as foreign interests?) At any rate the mix of greed, stupidity, self-righteousness and secrecy is always bound to end badly.
Equally troubling, on the civil liberties front, are the revelations regarding Pentagon and FBI domestic spying is the absence of known terrorist leaning militias and white supremacist groups. How is it possible, particularly after the Oklahoma City bombings that such groups seem to avoid scrutiny? Are they being "protected"? If Quakers and Gay Rights groups are enemies of the state, are fringe religious zealots and armed militias their "friends"?
In New York revelations about the NYPD's use of agent provocateurs should also trouble us. If the excuse of stifling domestic dissent arises from their perceived capacity for violence, well, hmmmm. Simply plant an agent to throw something at a cop and whoosh - you can arrest the whole crowd. Damn, you could probably send them all to Gitmo or Poland, even. (Don't forget Poland! Or as one friend moaned when hearing that we were using Stalin era secret prisons there - "Oh great, when do we re-open Auschwitz?")
How far away are we from declaring whistleblowers like former General Greenhouse enemies of the state? Would revealing details about a corrupt Halliburton contract make you an enemy combatant since to disclose such details regarding procurement is tantamount to aiding the enemy? Since we know that Team Bush has been a bazaar for all kinds of hucksters, hacks and nepotistic second-raters, what assurance do we have that this system is not being used to facilitate and cover-up all kinds of other felonies.
For years "humourists" like Ann Coulter have passed off their hate speech as mere free speech. But these repeated depictions of Democrats as traitors ripe for a beating have placed our republic on the razor's edge of chaos. What would happen if opposition to the President's prerogatives grew in volume and intensity? What if riots and civil unrest grew? Is that what they are really preparing us for?
To speak of a Police State is no longer a hypothetical. The entire apparatus needed for one is in place. All that is missing is the "intent".
We have no guarantee - all we have are Bush and Cheney's assurances that we should trust them.
Our response - quite simply - must echo Ronald Reagan.
"Trust, but verify"
It is, after all, the American way.