By Carter Bundy
This week, briefly, I was actually proud of our president. Of course I respect the office, but those of us who believe in fiscal responsibility, opportunity for all, war as a last resort and basic constitutional freedoms and the rule of law have had a tough time finding things to be proud of in our executive branch the last seven years.
President Bush’s shining moment came during a July 4th citizenship ceremony at
What they were protesting really doesn’t matter. They disrupted the proceedings and have been referred to as boorish, classless and worse by people who think that all official ceremonies should be spotless, sanitized events.
While it’s true that the immigrants didn’t deserve to have their day disrupted, I take issue with those who say their day was ruined or that it turned their proudest day into a nightmare.
Quite the contrary: Can you imagine a better welcome to the
This is where W had his one shining moment. Rather than grouse or yell to get the protesters out, he said “See, in
It was unquestionably not what the new citizens expected, or even would have wished for. And it undoubtedly was offensive to at least a handful of them, and certainly was to numerous (mostly conservative) commentators. But democracy isn’t for the timid, and freedom of speech that offends no one isn’t an especially robust form of freedom.
Justice Robert Jackson, writing for the U.S. Supreme Court in upholding the right of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ children to not say the Pledge of Allegiance even in 1943 in the middle of our most justifiable war, said:
“(F)reedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
I think it’s a great way to be welcomed to
Immunity Issues
Unfortunately, W’s one good moment of clarity pales in comparison to the abuse of Americans’ 4th Amendment right to be free of warrantless search and seizure.
The president claims that, after spying on Americans — without a shred of proof, documentation or judicial review — the tools he used for that abuse shouldn’t be examined for their role.
Telecom immunity is more complicated than most constitutional violations, because the telecoms claim that they were asked by the executive to spy on Americans without warrants and were given assurances by the Department of Justice — all the way up to the attorney general, it appears — that they were obeying the law and Constitution in doing so.
Part of me feels that it’s unfair to punish telecoms when they had such assurances. As I wrote last week, the rule of law is immutably at odds with arbitrary and random punishment. Maybe it is unfair to hold the telecoms liable. That in turn leads some people to think that telecoms deserve immunity before cases are even brought.
Here’s why that argument falls short: Reliance on government and law-enforcement officials is indeed a legitimate defense in a court of law. If the telecoms were given appropriate assurances from the attorney general and the president of the
But all of that can and should come out in court. The alleged violations are so serious — spying on our own citizens without a warrant? — that all Americans deserve to know how this came to be.
Even if the telecoms are ultimately exonerated, in order to be cleared they’ll have to lay the blame squarely where it belongs: on the White House, the DOJ, or both. At least we’ll know. Give the telecoms and the American people their day in court.
As for Senator Obama, he’s made it clear that he’s opposed to immunity and is trying to remove that clause; he’s not going to vote to take away other legitimate law-enforcement tools that help keep us safe; and he’s not going to vote against a bill that finally puts into law what many of us believe is already in the Constitution: Get a warrant before spying on Americans.
What if Obama fails to amend the FISA bill? Does he support an imperfect bill that helps keep us safe and also clarifies forever going forward that the government can’t spy on Americans without a warrant? That’s a very hard call, and those kind of dilemmas happen all the time in legislative bodies from city councils to the Roundhouse to the Capitol. I wouldn’t want to make that call.
What isn’t a hard call is that we need to start electing leaders who believe in upholding the Constitution. W talked the talk this week, but he hasn’t walked the walk in almost two full terms. No amount of free speech platitudes can make up for our president’s thorough disregard of our fundamental rights.
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in