Lawyers Wary Of Bush’S Expanded Spying Powers

The American Bar Association knows that actions which destroy liberty in the name of “security” only make us less secure.Lawyers Wary Of Bush’s Expanded Spying PowersBy Cliff Montgomery – August 22nd, 2007Congress’s recent expansion of the Bush Administration’s spying power on U.S. citizens’ emails and telephone calls quickly became a principal topic of discussion at the American Bar Association’s (ABA) yearly meeting, which was attended by about 9,000 attorneys in San Francisco over the Aug. 10th-12th weekend.ABA President Karen Mathis began the dialogue on Aug. 10th, demanding Congress revoke a recently-passed law indulging Bush’s already unconstitutional penchant for spying on his own citizens without either reason or warrant.Congressional members should “move at once” to rescind that ill-conceived legislation the moment they return from their August recess after Labor Day, Mathis added.The new law–which must be reinstated every six months by an already weak-kneed Congress–flatly gives Bush Administration Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and infamous Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the authority to spy on almost anyone they like, without the burden of following due process of law.Bush’s sweeping new spying powers, approved by gutless lawmakers earlier this month, may allow Bush Administration officials to run far more tyrannical spy operations than wiretapping.Soon the same administration which claims the absolute powers of an empire may–at any moment it suits our Idiot King’s gracious pleasure–begin performing some types of physical searches on U.S. soil and demanding the seizure of any Americans’ business records, all without proving just cause in a court of law, the August 18th edition of The New York Times quoted legal experts as saying.Perhaps worst of all, it even allows the Bush Administration to spy without obtaining perhaps the last safeguard of democracy during wartime–a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a secretive court brought into existence by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).Under secret reviews, FISC rules on applications from the National Security Agency, the FBI and other U.S. spy agencies. Each application vies for wiretap and/or search warrants for citizen and non-citizen alike, whom the agency thinks is engaging in ‘un-American activity’ on behalf of another power.Does it protect liberty? It’s all done in secret, so only the participants really know–we just have to take their word that it does. But apparently even this slim check on a tyrant’s power was too much for America’s budding Duce to bear.Royce Lamberth, a U.S. District Court judge in D.C. and former presiding justice of FISC,  knows how important checks and balances are to maintaining American democracy and Natural Right.As Lamberth pointed out during a speech at the American Library Association’s yearly convention this June:”We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war,” said Lamberth.It is just this simple point that Mathis echoed at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting on Aug. 10th.”With today’s technology and government having almost limitless power to secretly probe the most private communications of Americans, the ABA is concerned that this power is too great to be held in the hands of any one authority,” declared Mathis.History has proven that granting absolute power to any single individual or group only invites abuse and hubris, she added.Numerous legal experts also have said that under the new law, many types of communications are no longer ensured privacy protection by FISA. The legislation redefines the meaning of the term, “electronic surveillance,” and thus indirectly gives this administration a vastly stronger capacity to spy on any person in America, citizen and non-citizen alike–an action that previously had required court approval when done inside U.S. borders.The Bush Administration now may at any time conduct physical searches, seize business records, and perform so-called “trap and trace” actions–which analyze certain calling patterns–on almost anyone this most ideological of governments considers particularly “suspicious”.Though the Bush Administration claims that changes to FISA are needed because of ‘new security and technological threats’, Mathis deftly pointed out that the law’s principles “are tireless and timeless,” and thus do not allow anyone to substitute fear for reason, or offer a false “security” at the cost of liberty.”In an age of instant electronic communications, our government must protect our security and our constitutional freedoms,” Mathis said.The Bar Association’s House of Delegates declared in 2006 that government officials spying on American citizens should face the maximum possible judicial scrutiny, Mathis reminded the lawyers. Massive changes in FISA should likewise only be considered after an exhaustive congressional study, which must include facts showing that the recent law is not adequate, she added.The ABA knows that whatever promises spew forth from self-appointed ‘protectors’, those  actions which destroy liberty in the name of “security” only make us less secure.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) ofe-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!