After my disastrously entertaining "trip to crazy town" at the last listening session I attended with my U.S. Representative, it was refreshing to attend Senator Feingold's listening session this morning.
I have become increasingly alarmed at the evasive rhetoric and the questionably legal tactics employed by the Department of Justice to block investigations and court proceedings on matters of illegal surveillance and other possible lawbreaking of the Bush Administration.
Following a short introductory talk outlining Senator Feingold's positions regarding health care reform, the expected top topic of discussion, the well-managed, open and friendly Q & A session began.
Medicare part D, Social Security viability, cap and trade regulations, cost of living index, and even the military draft and how the Bill of Rights limits the Federal Government's power were topics raised by a friendly and well informed gathering of at least fifty citizens here in central Wisconsin.
After commenting on the advantages of a single payer health system over the concept of a public option trying to co-exist with private insurance companies who will inevitably insure only people in the peak of health, burdening the public plan with those who have imminent need for coverage, I got to my concerns about what could be the DOJ's motivation to decline to initiate appropriate investigations and it's efforts to block court proceedings.
I briefly reviewed the invocation of state secrets privilege, the denial of FOIA requests contrary to Obama's clear promise to grant them whenever possible, and the fabricated "sovereign immunity" claim, all used in concert with the disappointing White House insistence to only "look-forward-not-back".
I mentioned that I had read and agreed with the Senator's June 15 letter to the White House, in which Feingold requests Obama "formally and promptly renounce the assertions of executive authority made by the Bush Administration with regard to warrantless wiretapping", and had shared his obvious frustration at A.G. Holder's backtracking on the illegality of the warrantless wiretapping program, now calling it, "unwise".
My question, "I wonder if you feel the DOJ is operating appropriately independent of the White House, that is to say - without political motivation."
Senator Feingold's answer was, as usual, to the point, and honest to the point that he even remarked about Obama, "it's a lot harder to say that when the guy's your friend."
"I think this administration has gotten a number of things right in the area of the rule of law, but there are a couple of areas where they've gone real wrong."
"I have been the lead ctitic, the lead critic of the continuing abuse of the state secrets privilege, and I was appalled by Attorney General Holder's unwillingness to say to clear effect that the warrantless wiretapping program was baldly illegal....I'm deeply troubled by it."
"I'll tell you one thing the role (of government) isn't - to not invade people's privacy against the rule of law. This administration needs to not go down that road."