On February 9, the United States Senate will begin hearings into the violation of the law by the Bush Administration through its program to spy against Americans without search warrants through the National Security Agency. That’s an important step to holding the Bush White House accountable to the law, but it’s not enough. The House of Representatives, as far as I can tell, is refusing to hold any kind of serious hearings into the matter, and the Executive Branch has done nothing but declare that it will continue the program no matter what anyone else says.
Republican Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner has apparently blocked the effort to hold hearings into the NSA spying scandal in the House of Representatives. So, in response, Democrat Jerrold Nadler has sent a formal request to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special counsel that can look into allegations of criminal wrongdoing by White House officials, including President Bush and Gonzales himself.
It has become clear that Alberto Gonzales cannot conduct a fair investigation into the NSA anti-American wiretapping program. Gonzales has been making public statements defending the program, although he has not formally investigated the matter with a criminal probe against the President, and in spite of two reports from the nonpartisan research arm of Congress declaring that the National Security Agency program appears to be in serious violation of the law. Gonzales appears to have been one of the officials who supported the implementation of the illegal program. So, how could Gonzales possibly conduct a fair and disinterested investigation into the matter?
Gonzales needs to acknowledge his conflict of interest in this matter, and hand it over to a special counsel who is not politically dependent upon President Bush or the national Republican Party, and needs to do so soon. With the George W. Bush declaring that he intends to keep spying against Americans without asking for any search warrant or FISA court approval to do so, time is of the essence. As we see with the parallel spy scandal of the Bush White House’s program to spy on Americans who use online search engines such as Yahoo and MSN shows, huge numbers of American citizens are having their liberty taken away from them.
We are in the midst of a grave constitutional crisis in which American freedom is itself at stake. Our government has no greater duty than to investigate and prosecute the crimes that have led the nation into this crisis. The longer that Americans have to wait for such justice, the weaker the rule of law becomes. A few more years of these abuses, and the tattered remnants of our liberty may not survive.
Why should we expect Gonzales to recuse himself. I doubt he will any more than Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris did in 2000. We can not expect ethical or responsible behavoir from anyone associated with the Bush adminstration, as they have repeatedly proven time and again.
i agree. It used to be the case that people of integrity held political positions, but this phenomenon seems to have vanished after Eisenhower, and the representatives and senators we get now are basically special interest stooges. The common voter (who makes less than $100,000 a year) gets no consideration. I can’t figure out how we’re going to fix this broken government when we keep asking those in power to change their ways and there’s no recourse when they continue these shenanigans year after year (reckless spending, abuse of power, stripping away our rights, and failure to provide any relief for the masses of the former middle class – now the working poor).