Secrets & Lies: "No Such Agency"
"The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word—these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals." - Aldous Huxley
It has certainly been another strange week through the looking glass. I attended the final class sessions for my "Philosophy of Criminal Law" and "Advanced Topics in Ethics" graduate courses this past week. Perhaps age has softened me somewhat, but I have to honestly say that I enjoyed the two courses more than any I have ever taken. With all due deference to the stature of Professors like Derek Parfit (being able to take a course taught by him was I must say, without any hesitation or equivocation, in my estimation, a singular opportunity), Douglas Husak, and Larry Temkin (and I should here thank Larry and Doug sincerely for their support regarding a student-status which hung in the balance almost the entire term - an uncertain status which placed me under significant additional pressures), a great deal of the success of a seminar course axiomatically depends upon the quality, interest, and participation of the students sitting for the course.
On that note, during my 13 year absence from the halls of academe, Rutgers University has improved the quality of the Graduate Philosophy program immeasurably. Having gone from a barely remarked program all the way up to the #1 ranked program in the United States (this year Rutgers currently sits a close #2 to NYU's program - a pairing which has prompted some to call this geographical centering of philosophical talent "Edinburgh [or Athens] on the Hudson). Nothing can make a graduate level course more enjoyable than the kind of student body this ranking has attracted. They are easily on a par with the best and brightest students I knew at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley and a real joy to study with. I frankly wasn't sure I could hold my own with this new crop of brilliant students. I can only thank them all for their tolerance, patience, and forebearance. I learned a great deal from each of them this term. I may only hope that I acquitted myself intellectually and personally by the end of the term, and that my presence added, instead of detracted, from the overall course value. But, as I so often do, I digress. Back to the main topic at hand of today's blog.
When I arrived home from class on Wednesday I realized I had lost, from my suit jacket, a lapel pin that I rarely even wore. It was a National Security Agency pin that always reminded me of when I had served as the only state government employee in the US on one of the NSA's review groups. (If you haven't gone to an NSA convention and watched them feed sharks during the cocktail hour - I'm not making this up - you haven't lived.) How strange, I thought, a few days later, when news from that agency reached headlines across the globe.
I was enraged to learn that the NSA (an agency so cloaked in secrecy, that for many years it was sardonically referred to simply by the cryptic - pun intended - moniker "No Such Agency") had broken from past practices under which spying was conducted only against foreign nationals and foreign targets, to now actively spy without: warrant, subpoena, judicial review, or Congressional oversight, upon American citizens. In my preceding column, I spoke of Secret Laws, Secret Warrants, Secret Trials, and Secret Prisons. Well, it's now clear that not only were the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution being violated but the explicit terms of a 1978 law intended to prohibit domestic spying by the CIA and NSA was purposely violated. I will note, for the record, that I am pleased that some of my old colleagues at NSA refused to have anything to do with this program.
The Bush Administration argues that the law is irrelevant in this case, that the President's wartime authority trumps the law, yet, I would hasten to point out the following quote from the Supreme Court decision in a case where the President's wartime powers were squarely at issue: "The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times. It would do no good to recall the historical events, the fears of power and the hopes for freedom that lay behind their choice. Such a review would but confirm our holding that this seizure order cannot stand." Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer.
But, this isn't just about hiding secrets. No, it is about an Administration in the White House that believes they have the right and even duty to lie outright to the US Congress (I already noted, in my last post, their refusal to accede to justifiable demands from the courts for copies of appropriate laws/regulations they created) as well. During Senate hearings last April concerning the renewal of the Patriot Act, Senator Barbara Mikulski asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Richard Mueller directly about the NSA spying on Americans, asking: "Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?" "Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens."
This is not the first time those speaking for the Administration have been caught lying to Congress outright. Clearly and demonstrably, those in this White House believe that they are above the Courts, above the Congress, and above the American people themselves, i.e. they believe they are above the Constitution. They obviously believe that, as long as they deem the matter vital enough, the President's War Powers make him a dictator of all matters foreign and domestic during wartime, simply by dearth of the fact that a war is in progress (although I doubt any Supreme Court would agree; see how President Truman faired, by going to the State Department's own site to check out the aforementioned Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer or how the Supreme Court ruled on President Lincoln's illegal suspension of habeas corpus in Ex Parte Merryman). A war which they say is: everywhere, indeterminate, and indefinite. How convenient for them.
But this is hardly surprising, when one considers the pervasive and corrosive influence of unalloyed and unleavened Christian fundamentalism at play in this Administration. As former President Jimmy Carter has been quoted (and also makes clear in his newest book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis) : "There is an element of fundamentalism involved, which involves the belief on the part of a human being that [his or her] own concept of God is the proper one. And since [he or she has] the proper concept of God, [he or she is] particularly blessed and singled out for special consideration above and beyond those who disagree with [him or her]. Secondly, anyone who does disagree with [him or her], since [he or she is] harnessed to God in a unique way, then, by definition, must be wrong." Crusades anyone? ..And you thought it was simply another Bush slip of the tongue when he called this War on Terror a Crusade (check out the original remarks on the White House's own site) or an understandable faux pas when the US Army General assigned to track down Usama Bin Laden, Lt. General Jeremy Boykin, called Islam evil and more? Silly you.
This turns a statement once made by Abraham Lincoln on its proverbial head. At a White House dinner, a minister from the North is said to have told the president, after the pre-dinner benediction, that he "hoped the Lord is on our side." Responded Lincoln, "I am not at all concerned about that," he replied, "for I know the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." That, my friends, as expressed by the Great Emancipator, is the true spirit of righteousness and introspection Christianity, and all just and true religions, asks of each person.
But, back to the legal playing field. If one accepts the Bush arguments, I guess the Judicial and Legislative branches should just wrap up shop until this White House declares the war is at an end? Oh, and you voters? If the war is still raging in 2008, perhaps it doesn't make any sense to vote in that year's Presidential Election either? Those voting provisions are also only Constitutional and the White House does, by their argument, make all the rules if we are engaged in a war.
I once took the commentary of former White House Plumber John Dean, that the Bush Administration was criminal, with a grain of salt. But today, I must agree with Dean that their pattern of abuses is far Worse than Watergate. They have reached a level of hubris and imperial disdain that makes the Nixon Administration's Watergate criminality look like cheating during a parlor game of Old Maid on The Waltons.
To add insult to injury, President Bush has now said that reporting the existence of this illegal spying operation is illegal. If that is so Mr. President, I hereby announce that I am intentionally revealing the existence of this program and calling it illegal. Feel free to file charges any time Mr Gonzales.
Well, the President began to learn some of the costs of violating the law while flouting the will and authority of Congress when his beloved Patriot Act provisions went down faster than his approval ratings, which is to say faster than a hooker on a Lake Minnetonka Vikings boat cruise.
What I really enjoy though is a President as Whiner in Chief. Bush signs a memorandum that violates US law, as well as Constitutional guarantees, and then complains about Congress not trusting him when his Administration says they will "respect the rights of Americans." Am I the only person who thinks that working in the White House these days must be akin to somehow falling into Superman's Bizarro World? The Administration argues that some members of Congress knew about the spying and therefore oversight was sufficient. This is the same Administration that is now prompting a Republican Senator to block legislation forcing the Administration to reveal to Congress where its secret prisons are? The depth of hypocrisy here is quite literally unfathomable.
To paraphrase Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now: "the shit pile(s) up so fast (from this White House) you need wings to stay above it."
"What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash?" - Molière, Tartuffe
It has certainly been another strange week through the looking glass. I attended the final class sessions for my "Philosophy of Criminal Law" and "Advanced Topics in Ethics" graduate courses this past week. Perhaps age has softened me somewhat, but I have to honestly say that I enjoyed the two courses more than any I have ever taken. With all due deference to the stature of Professors like Derek Parfit (being able to take a course taught by him was I must say, without any hesitation or equivocation, in my estimation, a singular opportunity), Douglas Husak, and Larry Temkin (and I should here thank Larry and Doug sincerely for their support regarding a student-status which hung in the balance almost the entire term - an uncertain status which placed me under significant additional pressures), a great deal of the success of a seminar course axiomatically depends upon the quality, interest, and participation of the students sitting for the course.
On that note, during my 13 year absence from the halls of academe, Rutgers University has improved the quality of the Graduate Philosophy program immeasurably. Having gone from a barely remarked program all the way up to the #1 ranked program in the United States (this year Rutgers currently sits a close #2 to NYU's program - a pairing which has prompted some to call this geographical centering of philosophical talent "Edinburgh [or Athens] on the Hudson). Nothing can make a graduate level course more enjoyable than the kind of student body this ranking has attracted. They are easily on a par with the best and brightest students I knew at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley and a real joy to study with. I frankly wasn't sure I could hold my own with this new crop of brilliant students. I can only thank them all for their tolerance, patience, and forebearance. I learned a great deal from each of them this term. I may only hope that I acquitted myself intellectually and personally by the end of the term, and that my presence added, instead of detracted, from the overall course value. But, as I so often do, I digress. Back to the main topic at hand of today's blog.
When I arrived home from class on Wednesday I realized I had lost, from my suit jacket, a lapel pin that I rarely even wore. It was a National Security Agency pin that always reminded me of when I had served as the only state government employee in the US on one of the NSA's review groups. (If you haven't gone to an NSA convention and watched them feed sharks during the cocktail hour - I'm not making this up - you haven't lived.) How strange, I thought, a few days later, when news from that agency reached headlines across the globe.
I was enraged to learn that the NSA (an agency so cloaked in secrecy, that for many years it was sardonically referred to simply by the cryptic - pun intended - moniker "No Such Agency") had broken from past practices under which spying was conducted only against foreign nationals and foreign targets, to now actively spy without: warrant, subpoena, judicial review, or Congressional oversight, upon American citizens. In my preceding column, I spoke of Secret Laws, Secret Warrants, Secret Trials, and Secret Prisons. Well, it's now clear that not only were the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution being violated but the explicit terms of a 1978 law intended to prohibit domestic spying by the CIA and NSA was purposely violated. I will note, for the record, that I am pleased that some of my old colleagues at NSA refused to have anything to do with this program.
The Bush Administration argues that the law is irrelevant in this case, that the President's wartime authority trumps the law, yet, I would hasten to point out the following quote from the Supreme Court decision in a case where the President's wartime powers were squarely at issue: "The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times. It would do no good to recall the historical events, the fears of power and the hopes for freedom that lay behind their choice. Such a review would but confirm our holding that this seizure order cannot stand." Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer.
But, this isn't just about hiding secrets. No, it is about an Administration in the White House that believes they have the right and even duty to lie outright to the US Congress (I already noted, in my last post, their refusal to accede to justifiable demands from the courts for copies of appropriate laws/regulations they created) as well. During Senate hearings last April concerning the renewal of the Patriot Act, Senator Barbara Mikulski asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Richard Mueller directly about the NSA spying on Americans, asking: "Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?" "Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens."
This is not the first time those speaking for the Administration have been caught lying to Congress outright. Clearly and demonstrably, those in this White House believe that they are above the Courts, above the Congress, and above the American people themselves, i.e. they believe they are above the Constitution. They obviously believe that, as long as they deem the matter vital enough, the President's War Powers make him a dictator of all matters foreign and domestic during wartime, simply by dearth of the fact that a war is in progress (although I doubt any Supreme Court would agree; see how President Truman faired, by going to the State Department's own site to check out the aforementioned Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer or how the Supreme Court ruled on President Lincoln's illegal suspension of habeas corpus in Ex Parte Merryman). A war which they say is: everywhere, indeterminate, and indefinite. How convenient for them.
But this is hardly surprising, when one considers the pervasive and corrosive influence of unalloyed and unleavened Christian fundamentalism at play in this Administration. As former President Jimmy Carter has been quoted (and also makes clear in his newest book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis) : "There is an element of fundamentalism involved, which involves the belief on the part of a human being that [his or her] own concept of God is the proper one. And since [he or she has] the proper concept of God, [he or she is] particularly blessed and singled out for special consideration above and beyond those who disagree with [him or her]. Secondly, anyone who does disagree with [him or her], since [he or she is] harnessed to God in a unique way, then, by definition, must be wrong." Crusades anyone? ..And you thought it was simply another Bush slip of the tongue when he called this War on Terror a Crusade (check out the original remarks on the White House's own site) or an understandable faux pas when the US Army General assigned to track down Usama Bin Laden, Lt. General Jeremy Boykin, called Islam evil and more? Silly you.
This turns a statement once made by Abraham Lincoln on its proverbial head. At a White House dinner, a minister from the North is said to have told the president, after the pre-dinner benediction, that he "hoped the Lord is on our side." Responded Lincoln, "I am not at all concerned about that," he replied, "for I know the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." That, my friends, as expressed by the Great Emancipator, is the true spirit of righteousness and introspection Christianity, and all just and true religions, asks of each person.
But, back to the legal playing field. If one accepts the Bush arguments, I guess the Judicial and Legislative branches should just wrap up shop until this White House declares the war is at an end? Oh, and you voters? If the war is still raging in 2008, perhaps it doesn't make any sense to vote in that year's Presidential Election either? Those voting provisions are also only Constitutional and the White House does, by their argument, make all the rules if we are engaged in a war.
I once took the commentary of former White House Plumber John Dean, that the Bush Administration was criminal, with a grain of salt. But today, I must agree with Dean that their pattern of abuses is far Worse than Watergate. They have reached a level of hubris and imperial disdain that makes the Nixon Administration's Watergate criminality look like cheating during a parlor game of Old Maid on The Waltons.
To add insult to injury, President Bush has now said that reporting the existence of this illegal spying operation is illegal. If that is so Mr. President, I hereby announce that I am intentionally revealing the existence of this program and calling it illegal. Feel free to file charges any time Mr Gonzales.
Well, the President began to learn some of the costs of violating the law while flouting the will and authority of Congress when his beloved Patriot Act provisions went down faster than his approval ratings, which is to say faster than a hooker on a Lake Minnetonka Vikings boat cruise.
What I really enjoy though is a President as Whiner in Chief. Bush signs a memorandum that violates US law, as well as Constitutional guarantees, and then complains about Congress not trusting him when his Administration says they will "respect the rights of Americans." Am I the only person who thinks that working in the White House these days must be akin to somehow falling into Superman's Bizarro World? The Administration argues that some members of Congress knew about the spying and therefore oversight was sufficient. This is the same Administration that is now prompting a Republican Senator to block legislation forcing the Administration to reveal to Congress where its secret prisons are? The depth of hypocrisy here is quite literally unfathomable.
To paraphrase Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now: "the shit pile(s) up so fast (from this White House) you need wings to stay above it."
"What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash?" - Molière, Tartuffe
posted by Keith | 12/18/2005 08:44:00 PM
4 Comments:
OK, Kath, care to rephrase it? I realize it is horribly awkward.
Yes, he certainly is Kath.
Ok, I've rephrased it.
Unfortunately, even John McCain has sold out on the issue of the illegal wiretaps and intercepts.
Saying that Sept. 11 "changed everything," McCain told ABC's "This Week": "The president, I think, has the right to do this."
"We all know that since Sept. 11 we have new challenges with enemies that exist within the United States of America - so the equation has changed."
McCain said that while the administration needs to explain why it didn't first seek approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, he suggested that the Patriot Act might have superseded the 1978 FISA Act, allowing "additional powers for the president."
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