Most historians regard the Alien and Sedition Acts as among the most shameful travesties ever passed by Congress. This isn't the first time in American history that Congress was willing to ignore those inconvenient (yet inalienable) rights of ours because we were atremble in the wake of A Foreign Menace. The French!!! Which goes to show how irrational these fears can seem in retrospect.
Anyways, in 1799 Congress decided to hand President John Adams authoritarian powers that were clearly contrary to the Constitution. He hadn't even asked for them.
Imagine the chutzpah of doing that at a time that the framers of the Constitution were still kicking. Of course, we hadn't yet developed the near-religious reverence towards "the framers" that those current underminers of all they stood for now affirm. But it'd be pretty embarrassing to vote "Yea" on abridging the 1st amendment... and then run into James Madison at a cocktail party.
The FISA law is in the spirit of the original Alien Acts, so let's go all out and also draft a New Sedition Act: an Abridgement of Free Speech for the 21st Century. It might actually do us some good.
You can follow my twisted logic after the fold... (don't worry: I won't bite)
It would appear that the new FISA law is quite in keeping with the Alien Acts: lets ignore that pesky 4th Amendment on the premise that the executive branch needs New And Improved Powers that the Constitution somehow irresponsibly overlooked.
The original Sedition Act (aka "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States") made it criminal to publish "false, scandalous and malicious" stories for the purpose of undermining the government or its officials.
This, of course, has a chilling effect on our First Amendment Rights: criticism of the President, for instance, could be considered treasonous.
I have little to fear on this account. In the language of the original Sedition Act, the statements made against the administration needed to be FALSE to be seditious or treasonous.
I don't know about you, but for my part, the Bush Administration (and the Republican Administrations preceding it) have always outperformed my most paranoid assertions about them. I have come to accept that it is beyond the limits of my imagination to accuse a Republican Administration of something that they hadn't already accomplished by that point.
So I figure I have nothing to fear from a Sedition Act.
However, when Barack Obama becomes President in 2009, think of the exquisite justice of using all of the new authoritarian powers at his discretion (you know, those "college hazing pranks"?) against the damnable lies that the corporate media are already cooking up against him. Sean Hannity repeats the rumors about Obama being a Muslim? Address your letters to him to Gitmo from now on.
Think about how different the 90's would have been if Rush Limbaugh could only accuse the Clintons of stuff that was actually TRUE? I'm sure he wouldn't have been able to control himself, and he'd be rotting in some prison cell in what had once been the bowling alleys under the White House to this very day.
Consider the following:
- Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have demonstrated no inclination to hold the Bill of Rights sacrosanct. Nancy, in particular, doesn't seem to know what her oath of office is: despite the fact that she administers the oath to new members of congress... ("We took an oath to defend the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic," Pelosi said. Wrong: you took an oath to defend the Constitution.)
- Their legacy is already trashed. They're going to be compared with the Supreme Court that decided Dred Scott, or the Congress that passed the original Alien and Sedition Acts. They've got nothing to lose by doing something this unconstitutional... at this point we expect nothing less of them.
- The press is almost as big a threat to American Democracy as this administration and their enablers in Congress are.
A new Sedition Act may be the finest media reform we can hope for. Most of the prominent luminaries of the print and broadcast media would be swept away to make room for journalists who might actually have to find a factual basis for their assertions. They'd have to validate their sources and do investigative work. They'd need to be wary that one of their inside sources might be trying to burn them, so they'd have to vet stuff from multiple sources instead of just repeating "sources say..."
So why not? C'mon, Nancy... draft a Sedition Act and then we can even call them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 2008.
And won't you enjoy having that hung around your neck for all posterity? Face it, you're already there.