As Senate majority leader at the time, I helped negotiate that law with the White House counsel’s office over two harried days. I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance.
- Tom Daschle
Policy made in the heat of anger and rage is rarely in anyone’s long-term interest. When this policy involves an Administration asking for carte blanche and using 9.11 to justify creating the beginnings of a police state…well, that borders on criminal. Of course, the Bush Adminstration has long since demonstrated that criminality in the pursuit of power is nothing to lose sleep over. After all, when absolute power is the absolute goal, anything that contributes to achieving that goal is acceptable.
Congratulations, y’all. 51% of you gave the green light to the creation of a thugocracy that makes the Nixon Adminstration look like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
In the wake of 9.11, no one wanted to be accused of coddling those responsible for killing 3,000 innocent Americans. We all wanted those responsible to pay for their crime. Few of us realized at the time what the government was proposing to do in the name of waging war on terrorists, and few were inclined toward sober and rational long-term thinking. In retrospect, what the Bush Administration was asking for was the ability to wage war on Americans- citizens who may or (most likely) may not be engaging in in terrorist activities. In effect, what Our Glorious Leader and his cabal were asking for was permission to create a system that could, and ultimately would, be used to spy and eavesdrop on their political enemies.
Too many within the Administration felt it perfectly justifiable to ask Congress to aquiesce in the erosion of American civil liberties in order to protect them. Yet, in the rush to look as if they were responding decisively and effectively, no one in the Administration stopped to ask the simple questions. Must we kill the patient in order to save it? What will the long-term effect be of allowing government to spy on American citizens? Is reacting in the heat of the moment, fueled by rage and a desire for retribution, really a recipe for sound policy?
In the face of mounting questions about news stories saying that President Bush approved a program to wiretap American citizens without getting warrants, the White House argues that Congress granted it authority for such surveillance in the 2001 legislation authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda. On Tuesday, Vice President Cheney said the president “was granted authority by the Congress to use all means necessary to take on the terrorists, and that’s what we’ve done.”….
On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to “deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.” Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided” the attacks of Sept. 11. With this language, Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words “in the United States and” after “appropriate force” in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas — where we all understood he wanted authority to act — but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.
In the end, Daschle’s refusal hardly mattered, because this Administration has proven adept at using whatever suits their purpose to argue that they were given Congressional approval to spy on American citizens. Ultimately, Our Glorious Leader and his cabal will use (or create) whatever justification they can latch onto in order to support whatever their position of the moment happens to be. This behavior is something that should offend reasonable and decent people. The idea that in order to protect the law, government must be allowed carte blanche to break the law is a patently absurd and unsupportable position. Creating the trappings of a police state to “protect freedom” and “prevent terrorism” should not be part and parcel of the world’s most successful and powerful democracy.
Interesting, isn’t it? A Democratic President has an affair with an intern and finds himself impeached. A Republican President lies his way into a war that has so far killed more than 2,000 Americans and seems to think it perfectly acceptable to break the law in order to “protect” it…yet his party and a majority of Americans see nothing wrong with this? If you can be impeached for getting a blow job in the Oval Office, should you not also be impeached for lying, breaking the law, fudging intelligence, and being responsible for the deaths of more than 2,000 Americans?
It’s true, isn’t it? Being a Republican means never having to say you’re sorry…or be held accountable for your actions. I hope the 51% of you who voted to “re-elect” the Prevaricator in Chief are proud of yourselves…because ultimately, you are responsible for allowing this criminal and immoral behavior to continue unchecked.
