Frank Hague was the
mayor here when I was in grammar school. He was the mayor for
30 years but, good or bad as he was, mostly bad, he will always
be remembered for one thing. It happened when he wanted to get
working papers for a couple of 14-year-olds, and an official told
him that was not legal. You had to be 16. Said Hague: "Listen,
here is the law: I am the law!"
President Nixon said
the same thing about secret bombings and burglaries: "It's
legal if the president says it's legal."
Now George W. Bush
is saying he is the law because he is the only president we have.
He has, in fact, become a Nixonian figure, alone in the White
House talking to the same people day after day, and fewer and
fewer of them. He does not like to talk to members of Congress
because he might let slip what he is actually doing in Iraq or
listening in on phone calls. He likes to appoint judges, but he
does not want to listen to them because they might make him stop
doing things he wants to do.
What, then,
is the purpose of having judges forbidden to judge? That was the
question raised by the resignation of federal Judge James Robertson
from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, the body charged
with issuing warrants for electronic eavesdropping on the domestic
calls and messages of Americans. He quit after it was revealed,
by The New York Times, that wiretapping and other surveillance
was going ahead, by order of the president, without warrants of
any kind. Robertson's role, unwittingly, was a cover for breaking
the law.
All administrations,
in my experience, lie on some matters of national security. Then
they lie about the lying, as President Bush did a year ago when
he said: "Any time you hear the United States government
talking about wiretaps, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court
order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about
chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order
before we do so."
Not true. Like Nixon,
who preferred to be in a circle of one, Bush can't stand the idea
of governance slowed and scrutinized by checks and balances. This
president has now broken the silence and some of the deception
by announcing that he authorized warrantless eavesdropping --
and claims that his deception saved the lives of thousands of
American lives threatened by new acts of terrorism.
That may be true.
These are times that try men's souls -- and times that are changing
at exponential speed. Terrorism is real and frightening, and the
president is charged with the responsibility of protecting his
people. This is a different kind of war and has to be fought in
different ways, particularly when it is waged, on both sides,
by exploiting quantum leaps in communication technology.
But the United States
cannot win (and preserve the individual freedoms that made this
a great nation) by relying on one man or a few dozen. These latest
revelations of technique, danger and deception show that the time
has come for national debate and dialogue about many dangers,
not on more secrecy and lying. The White House, I assume, is doing
what it thinks necessary -- legal or not -- but the Congress is
not, either because it is being lied to or is derelict in its
duties.
The times call for
a robust debate by elected officials everywhere, particularly
in the Senate and House, on the checks and balances necessary
to fight this war without giving up the freedoms we are trying
to protect. Otherwise, the United States will continue its drift
toward becoming a lawless police state with regular elections.
