Proud to be un-American

Two issues made headlines today which merit comment. At present I can only provide a primer. Suffice it to say that—in spite of widespread naïveté and euphoria over the new Congress—the retardation of our government grows daily.

 

First, there is the recent about-face of the Justice Department and the administration regarding the FISA court and domestic spying. Justice (et al) announced that the administration will no longer green-light the program, but they insist that this has nothing to do with the new Congress nor with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' impending interrogation by new Senate Judicial Committee Chairman, Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The claim at present is that the FISA Court changed the rules for applications, making it easier for Justice to submit and thereby allowing them to do their jobs as they choose. (Justice will not reveal what changes occurred to provide for the reversal in policy, as this is "classified.") Further, Press Secretary Tony Snow bristled when the press corps asked if the administration was trying to preempt Congressional oversight; he turned it around on the reporter, saying that the latter was "accusing" the Court of acting politically to "bail out the Bush administration—I don't think so."

 

Here's the catch: if all this is true, then why didn't the GOP approve the repeated attempts by Arlen Specter (D-PA; I count 6 bills in the 109th Congress sponsored by him) to provide appropriations to "meet the increased personnel demands to process applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court" and to "improve and strengthen [use of funds] ...in the implementation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as well as increase the efficiency of the application process." In other words, if the issue was primarily the amount of time and manpower required to file applications (which is exactly what Mr Gonzales claimed when testifying before Congress, and constitutes a paraphrase of the administration's excuse), and if the FISA Court has eased these restrictions, then why did the administration, Justice, GOP, etc. oppose such moves in the past? Indeed, aside from Specter's own sponsorship, I count 11 such attempts by the 109th and 108th which did not make it to a floor vote.

 

(For those who think my assumption regarding the content of the Court’s supposed changes in policy is too speculative, I’m simply following the administration’s logic. That is, this is the stated reason why they ignored the FISA Court in the past. Yet they did not pursue the GOP-controlled Senate’s repeated attempts to do this very thing, which would have precluded the need for and possibility of the Court changing its own rules—it is controlled by Congress. Therefore, either they are lying now or they were lying then: the change in policy cannot have anything to do with the Court’s guidelines, as previous attempts to change them were insufficient for the administration. But, then, why did they do it at all? This is Neoconservatism 101: the entire movement has been all about increasing the Executive Branch’s authority, at the expense of the other Branch’s oversight capacities, since its inception. Thus, when faced with the likelihood of being neutered by the Legislative, the Executive simply alters policy—thereby disallowing the precedent which would be set. This is not uncommon: witness Jose Padilla. When faced with a battle against the Supreme Court (which it was almost guaranteed to lose) regarding the three-year detention—without charge, without evidence, and for most of the time without counsel and held in solitary confinement—of an American citizen, the administration suddenly turned Mr Padilla over to a criminal court. I.e., when the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, it signaled that the Executive might not be able to do whatever the hell it wanted with both American and foreign “enemy combatants.” Instead of allowing the Court such oversight—and by way of avoiding an embarrassing legal battle: no one knows Padilla’s name right now, but imagine if the evening news covered the illegal three year detainment of an American citizen—the administration simply side-stepped the issue.)

 

Second, the BBC reported today that the Pentagon drafted a new manual pertaining to detainee military tribunals allowed by the Congressional bill at the end of last year. Specifically, the BBC states, "The new rules would allow terror suspects to be imprisoned on the basis of hearsay or coerced testimony - if a judge ruled the evidence credible." Best of all, the Pentagon refers to the trials as "fair and just."

 

(To my utter dismay, I had to go to the BBC for this. It was on their front page. I couldn't find it at all on CNN, and FOX's version was truncated beyond recognition; none of the above information was provided in their reporting.)

 

Yet another day goes by which makes me proud to be an American. (Ironic that “an American” and “un-American” are homophonic expressions…)

 

-W.