Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Today, in the Winona Daily News, Nathan Hansen of the town of Rushford identifies a startling gap between rhetoric and reality on the part of Minnesota’s two United States senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken.

Both of these Democrats claim to be devoted to the defense of Americans’ constitutional rights, but talk is cheap. In practice, both of them voted last month to renew the worst aspects of the plainly unconstitutional Patriot Act – without any attempt at reform. Hansen notes:

“Franken in committee and in public denounces the Patriot Act provisions, including the one roving wiretaps that was extended by his vote. But his voting record does not agree with this. The vote marks the second time that he violated his principles, and his promises to his constituents in Minnesota, and the American people as a whole.

Klobuchar, too, has publicly opposed Patriot Act provisions, but abandoned them in order to keep from rocking the boat. It is sad that this illiberal bill passed by 86-12 margin, but the truly sad part of the story is that Minnesota’s out-of-the-box senators have not really been doing anything out of the box.”

We don’t have to just sit and take it when public officials like senators Klobuchar and Franken fail to live up to their responsibilities. We can, as Hansen would put it, get out of the box.

This coming Saturday, there will be an opportunity for Americans who oppose the renewal of the extraordinary surveillance powers of the Patriot Act to get out of the box and be heard by Congress. There will be a protest demanding repeal of the Patriot Act on Saturday, March 12 at Noon outside the west side of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C. Bring a sign of protest to show that America will not be silent while its constitutional right are sacrificed!

Last year, we warned about the electoral implications of the nomination of Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate. Coakley supported the Patriot Act, alienating the progressive base of the Democratic Party. Mike Capuano, who was one of the few to vote against the Patriot Act back in 2001, would have been a much better choice, and could have rallied Democratic voters to beat Scott Brown.

All that’s history now. What’s not history is the Patriot Act.

Just last week, the House of Representatives voted to pass an extension of the Patriot Act without any reforms at all, sneaking the vote in as an approval of an unspecified amendment to a Medicare bill.

Two-thirds of the House Democrats voted with the Republicans to approve the reform-free extension of Patriot Act spying powers that the government uses against Americans. Mike Capuano was not one of them. Capuano voted against the perpetuation of George W. Bush’s spying programs.

“You may recall that in 2001, I voted against the Patriot Act because I strongly believed that it did not do enough to protect our cherished civil liberties. I continue to have serious concerns about some of its provisions,” Capuano wrote, explaining his vote. “I want to be clear that it is important to give law enforcement the tools they need to pursue criminals. However, there is a way to do that and still recognize the importance of civil liberties – and such a solution is not currently being pursued by the House and Senate.”

Thank you, Representative Capuano, for taking a stand against the politics of fear.

Why attend an Inauguration demonstration? This pro-Constitution demonstration is a good pick, because as much as Barack Obama has inspired the trust of the American people, we know that the power brokers are waiting for him, with tools of persuasion that are difficult to resist.

Attend this demonstration on the route of the Inaugural Parade to send Obama a message: The American people want their full constitutional rights restored.

Please, President Obama – follow your Oath of Office. Uphold the Constitution.

January 20, 2009, corner of 9th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington D.C. – Noontime – Be there.

The Associated Press headline this morning was

Bush: China must end detentions, ensure freedoms

Couldn’t it have been

China: Bush must end detentions, ensure freedoms

?

Obama cites faith as key to change, says today’s headline for the Boston Globe (Actually, it’s an Associated Press article – the newspapers don’t bother writing their own stories much any more).

Is it true? Is Obama right? Is faith the key to change?

Well, gosh, but that’s sure how it looks with the FISA Amendments Act.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act isn’t a cover up of Bush’s criminal spying against millions of Americans without any criminal suspicion, any search warrant, or any notification of any court as required by law and the Constitution. Yet, the FISA Amendments Act gives retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that helped George W. Bush break the law, preventing information about the illegal program against the American people from entering the public record. Gosh, that sure looks like a cover up. Oh, but Barack Obama says it isn’t, so have faith, and don’t think about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the recent Inspectors General report into illegal hiring practices is a “strong example” of how there might still be some accountability for Bush’s crimes, in spite of the FISA Amendments Act blockage of the normal forms of investigation. Yet, the Inspectors General report that Obama cites resulted in no accountability whatsoever for anyone responsible for the crimes it describes. Gosh, that doesn’t look anything at all like a “strong example” of accountability. Oh, but Barack Obama says it’s true, so have faith, and just don’t think about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act will stop George W. Bush’s massive programs of physical searches of Americans’ homes and eavesdropping on Americans’ electronic communications. Golly, if you take the time to read the FISA Amendments Act, though, it allows the President to continue those programs, without any actual restraint. Oh, but Barack Obama says that all the spying is going to stop, so have faith, and don’t worry your little head about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act restores the exclusive jurisdiction of the FISA court to control George W. Bush’s big spying programs against Americans. Gee whillikers, though, the FISA Amendments Act that I’ve read actually gives the Attorney General of the United States the exclusive power to both operate the spy programs against Americans and to be the watchdog of those same spy operations. The FISA Amendments Act that I’ve read actually cuts the FISA court OUT of the process. Oh, but Barack Obama says it isn’t so. He says it’ll be okay. He says you don’t have to worry. He says yes you can send him a big donation. So, have faith.

See, with the power of faith, there can be change! The change in this case, is that the FISA Amendments Act and its attack on the Constitution gets passed, but who needs to be picky?

Change is change, right? Who cares about the details?

Yes we can! Baaa! Change we can believe in! Baaa! Hope! Baaa!

In the aftermath of the long-delayed Supreme Court decision to reassert the right of all people held prisoner by the United States government to have the ancient protection of habeas corpus, there has been a lot of hand-wringing among right wing pundits about whether the USA is strong enough to handle this level of freedom. Can we deal with a society where people are not thrown into prison at the whim of political elites, they ask, with anxious wrinkles crossing their foreheads.

The short answer is: Of course we can handle it, if we, the citizens of the USA, can avoid the temptation to buck and run. The structures of American democracy are not so limp and wimpy as right wingers seem to think.

Beyond that short answer, it’s important to understand what these right wing pundits are really concerned about. They purport to be worried about the nature of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other secret torture prisons run by George W. Bush. More honestly, these right wingers are concerned by the very idea of justice, applied equally and fairly. They worry their meek little hearts about whether a fair system of justice will protect them from the people they fear.

They ask, Should the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay be allowed to have access to lawyers? However, their question really amounts to this: Should we restrict prisoners’ access to lawyers, period?

The essence of the law under the United States Constitution, which applies everywhere that the United States government has authority, is that all people, no matter what they are accused of, should have equal protection under the law. That means that if we restrict some prisoners’ access to lawyers, we are declaring that our system has the right to restrict access to lawyers for any class of prisoners, if they should happen to offend us. If we make that choice, we are choosing to upend the Constitution, and to make our legal system unbalanced and unjust.

For that reason, no, the prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay should not have their access to lawyers restricted. If we believe that justice works, we have no reason to be afraid. If we are afraid that justice does not work when applied without prejudice, we need to learn to control our fears. This is no time for right wing sissies to come along with their hands shaking, muttering that America can’t be safe unless we throw away our Constitution and the system of justice that it has established.

Get some backbone. Support justice, especially for the people you think are guilty of terrible things. If they really are guilty, a fair system of justice will find them guilty.

Many in the corporate world are having a knee jerk reaction to support the Republican proposal to, through the extension of the Protect America Act in the FISA Amendments Act, give telecommunications companies legal immunity from the assistance they have given to the government in conducting massive electronic spying operations against American citizens while those operations were against the law. Their automatic impulse is to support the Republican Party. In this case, however, to do so is directly in contradiction to their economic interests.

Corporations do have a responsibility to the government – to follow the law. Corporations also have responsibilities to their customers, to honor their privacy agreements. If corporations show that their legal agreements with customers no longer have any weight, what basis is there for trust in the marketplace any longer?

It is absolutely to claim that America can only be secure from terrorism when the government is allowed to conduct massive electronic spying operations against American citizens AND businesses without any judicial review or congressional oversight. In fact, America cannot be secure from terrorism when power over communications is so centralized that free and open communication within and between corporations and citizens is limited by self-censorship. A nation of citizens afraid to talk to each other openly is a nation where no one, including the government can know what is going on.

The FISA Amendments Act legislation goes far beyond reasonable reform. It is a threat to the independence of business from government and to the liberty of the individual citizen.

No one can conduct business when they aren’t assured of private communications. If people in business believe that government spies may be eavesdropping upon any of their electronic conversations, innovation, cooperation and sales will grind down until they are excruciatingly slow. Without the ability to secure proprietary information, all the competitive advantages built up over the last 15 years through the development of electronic communication would come to naught.

The FISA Amendments Act would indeed give legal immunity to corporations like AT&T, Google and Yahoo, for cooperating with the federal government in spying against Americans’ private communications. However, that legal immunity is no protection. In fact, such immunity would strip corporations of any legal justification for refusing to cooperate with government electronic spying programs.

If the FISA Amendments Act, no company could guarantee its customers privacy. That would have a chilling effect on all business, not just individual communication.

The American economy cannot function without freedom of speech, the right to free assembly, and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure. That’s why American business ought to come together with civil libertarians and demand that the FISA Amendments Act be voted down by the United States Senate.