Letters to the Editor
rollotomasi
Published Letters: 187
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Changing the debate - it's more than the Fourth Amendment
[Read the article: The "liberal" position on the Surveillance State]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most of the discussions here and elsewhere on FISA justifiably have focused on the threats to our civil liberties. We have discussed FISA in terms of the false choice of security vs. rights as well as how it has been framed as a security issue rather than the legal one it would have been during saner times. Also, Glenn has pointed out today how those opposing the surveillance state have been marginalized as “liberals,” with the Republicans once again trotting out the old good (Americans) vs. evil (Liberals) arguments, long noted by Glenn, where the Republicans have cashed in national assets, both intangible and tangible, earned by our forebears in exchange for political advantage in pursuit of their ideological excesses.
When the Democrats and many of us here who are of the reality persuasion respond to these issues and the Republicans’ faith-based renderings thereof, we have this tendency to discuss the issues as if they are in a vacuum. This compartmentalization tends to legitimize the Republicans’ framings as an “either-or” proposition. Even the few times FISA gets a fair shake in the media, it usually is presented in this bi-polar, national security vs. constitutional rights fashion ultimately favorable to the radical right.
The Democrats are missing the opportunity, indeed the mandate imo, to broaden the discussion to use the current behavior of Bush/Cheney and the Republicans as illustrations of their points, which not only bolsters their arguments directly related to issues such as FISA, but also goes a along way in exposing who are the real radicals that should be marginalized.
Here we have an executive branch and party that exemplifies, really is the very personification, of our fears of warrantless wiretapping: the over-reach, abuse of power, and ineptness, whether it be the “One Percent Solution,” torture, political prosecutions of an Alabama governor, or a Republican operative jailed for sabotaging Democratic Party efforts in the 2002 New Hampshire election who openly admits that his party’s mentality can be boiled down to “the ends justify the means,” that the only barometer for judging a particular campaign tactic should be whether or not it helps you win - @
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/8/how_to_rig_an_election_convicted.
It has been long-accepted that a political strategy which has served the Republican Party very well through the years is to go after an opponent’s strength. I have felt all along that insufficient external oversight also would ultimately harm our national security. Recent disclosures have presented opportunities to the Democrats to make arguments along similar lines and they have seemingly passed them up. I haven’t been able to follow Congressional hearings and other discussions as closely as I would have liked, but it is my impression that the revelation of the telecoms cutting their wiretaps over nonpayment of bills by the federal government, @
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/10/AR2008011001879_pf.html,
while briefly denounced by a few Democrats, was pretty quickly tossed aside as a national security issue, I’m sure to the relief of Republicans. It immediately rendered insincere Bush/Cheney’s proclamations of the telecoms’ patriotism, but, more importantly, this fundamental lapse in control had to call their competence in national security into serious question. Does one think the Republicans would have hesitated for a second at such an opportunity to make political hay?
Additionally, I have seen no evidence the admission by the administration at a Congressional hearing this week, that there were “serious security flaws” in the control of White House emails, @
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/26/white-house-e-mail-preservation-system-primitive/,
has been made part of the FISA debate. Although this is more likely a smokescreen to shove the blame for destruction of White House emails down the government org chart, how hard is it to make the argument that if the administration cannot perform the relatively simple task of properly and lawfully securing their own email system, how can we reasonably expect them to perform the much more complicated and crucial task of doing the same regarding the nation’s security without any need for external oversight? Bush/Cheney are either incompetent or lying about their email system. Which is it going to be? (My bet is that it is both.)
Why the Democrats should be reluctant to go after the Republicans supposed strength based on legitimate security concerns after having their own strengths attacked for years based on utter b-s is beyond me.
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Democratic paper tiger
[Read the article: House Democratic leadership: not just complicit but also self-destructive]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When the House Dems passed on a couple of recent political opportunities to go after Bush/Cheney on national security - i.e, the nonpayment of telecom phone bills and the admission of serious security flaws in the White House email system; it seemed likely then the Dems were not really into it. The Democrats and our country ultimately will regret this sham(e).