After reading Glenn Greenwald's excellent post today on the decline of the rule of law in this country, I've come up with a proposal to clarify our "laws" and how the "rule of law" should work in this country, which would render un-necessary specific revisions in the law to, for example, grant immunity to telecom companies or government officials for committing criminal felonies by violating the FISA laws passed in 1978.
Glenn perceptively notes:
There is no such thing as a "patriotism exception" to the laws that we pass. It is not a defense to illegal behavior to say that one violated the law for "patriotic" reasons. That was Oliver North's defense to Congress when he proudly admitted breaking multiple federal laws. And it is the same "defense" that people like North have been making to justify Bush's violations of our surveillance laws -- what we call "felonies" -- in spying on Americans without warrants.
By definition, the "rule of law" does not exist if government officials and entities with influential Beltway lobbyists can run around breaking the law whenever they decide that there are good reasons for doing so. The bedrock principle of the "rule of law" is that the law applies equally to everyone, even to those who occupy Important Positions in Fred Hiatt's social, economic and political circles and who therefore act with the most elevated of motives.
Glenn continues:
By definition, our Beltway establishment does not believe in the rule of law -- at least not for them. They are creating a completely segregated, two-track system where high Beltway officials and their corporate enablers arrogate unto themselves the power to decide when they can break the law. They are thus literally exempt from our laws, even our criminal laws, while increasingly harsh, merciless, and inflexible punishments are doled out for the poorest and least connected criminals -- who receive no consideration of any kind, let alone presidential commutations or special laws written for them by Congress retroactively rendering legal their patently criminal behavior.
Well, I've come up with a proposal.
Congress should pass a new law, the Retroactive Immunity Act of 2007, which could use very simple, clear, language. It could go something like this:
This Act grants retroactive immunity, going forward, to any felony committed at the order of the President of the United States.
What I'm saying is, let's make the system official. Congress can put a "patriotism", exception in place, and let's make it loud and clear. We'll give this power to the President (who decides what's patriotic) and the President could use this new law to grant immunity to any person (or people) he orders to violate any of our current Federal criminal felonies. Now, that is a law that I think the Bush Administration and the US Congress could both get behind, and be proud of!
This would clear up any confusion on the part of the public or future patriotic non-criminals. If the President orders any person in the United States to commit a felony, that person, if caught, shall be deemed immune from prosecution.
Clearly we have nothing to fear from enabling the President to order people to commit felonies (From Wikipedia)
Crimes commonly considered to be felonies include, but are not limited to: aggravated assault and/or battery, arson, burglary, embezzlement, grand theft, treason, espionage, racketeering, robbery, murder, rape, kidnapping and fraud.)
At least, we should have nothing to fear if any of those crimes are committed for a good, patriotic, or Top Secret reason. Look at the current state of affairs, for example. The President has admitted to ordering warrantless spying in violation of the 1978 FISA laws (criminal felonies). We also know that, however you define torture, there is a clear law against it (The US War Crimes Act). It's our dirty little secret. The President has ordered felony violations, and these acts go unpunished.
But the current "laws", as written by Congress, don't really make the situation clear.
Clearing things up via the Retroactive Immunity Act of 2007 would free us of the annoying FISA debate, it'd quiet up the torture debate, as well as any ridiculous debates in the future which could arise because Presidents of either political party decide they need, for their own Presidential reasons, to commit or to order people to commit what we know of as, "crimes".
You see, when it comes to this debate about FISA and spying and crimes and immunity, the question we should be asking is: why isn't Congress exempting all Presidentially-sanctioned felons from prosecution with one glorious Retroactive Immunity Act.
(I guess another could be, what makes other Presidentially-sanctioned felons, now and in the future, so different than the major telecom companies? Those guys have better lobbyists than other felons?)
But it's not just the felons who we'd be helping with retroactively immunity. We need to immunize all Presidentially-sanctioned felons, past and future, so that the rules of our society are clear and simple, for all to read and understand.
The 2007 Retroactive Immunity Act will make it plain and simple: if the President orders it, then it's legal.
Update: Some of you radical leftist socialist commies will probably say that The Retroactive Immunity Act of 2007 should give immunity to all Felons in the US, dating back, I don't know, to the Inauguration date of George W Bush. You'll whine and say that if the telecom companies and Bush officials can commit federal crimes with impunity, we should immunize ALL felons in the United States. Silly hippies. We want the system to be clear: you can only break the law in the United States if the President orders you to do it. Otherwise, you break the law at your own risk.
Originally posted at The New Down