The Domestic Spying Scandal

Okay, here's the first of several long overdue updates to this blog. Firstly, I want to talk about politics. There's a million differentr angles to take lately, what with the country in a political jam unheard of since the early 70's and Nixon, but I want to mostly focus on the wiretapping scandal. I'm sure you've heard that the Bush White House has been using the NSA to tap US citizens without a court order. I just want to explain why this is so wrong and corrupt on it's face.

The US Government relies upon separation of powers. The brilliance of this structure is that no one branch of government can become too powerful and dictatorial. To that end, mindful of what the Nixon Whie House did in the 70's (use the FBI to spy on political enemies), Congress in 1978 made it illegal to wiretap americans without a court order. This ensures some oversight on activities that can easily be misused (that is to say, used against the public's interest, a la Nixon).
Bush and his team were well aware of this. That's why, for the past few years, when defending the Patriot Act, he's been saying that any wiretapping needs a court order. Stop and think about that for a second. He made those statements while knowing full well he was authorizing wiretaps without a court order. In other words (repeat after me) he was Lying to the American People.

When the New York Times, as a courtesy, let Bush know it was going to reveal this, Bush summoned the publisher and editor to the oval office (this is true) and pleaded with them to kill the story. They refused, having heard Bush's 'this is a National Security issue' defence once too often. This was on last Friday. So then the Bush team, obviously panicked, brainstormed and came up with a new strategy. Call these proceedures vital to National Security and imply that the NY Times is a traitorous rag for printing the story.

Now, a lot of people, a sizeable minority anyway, will buy that story. Why? Because they want to believe it. They've backed W all the way and to change horses now would cause their brains to melt. But for a majority of Americans, these arguments are getting old. They see the reality - you made an unlawful power grab and got caught. Bush can dress it up however he likes, but this is the law, and he broke it. And if, as he says, the law wasn't responsive enough, then he needed to change the law.

So he's in trouble. If there was a democratic-controlled congress, there would probably be articles of impeachment brought, but that won't happen with the toadies running congress now. So that means the trouble will mostly be of a political kind. I believe that several old-school politicians and judges will speak out against this, realizing the constitutional precedent it sets, and being not quite so comfortable with a potential Democratic president acting the same way. This will further erode W's standing and hurt the GOP come election day 2006.

And now a closing thought: They impeached Clinton for lying about his personal sex life, but They'll give Bush a pass for lying abut WMD, Al Qaeda links to Iraq, and spying on US citizens. Doesn't seem quite fair, does it?