The Constitution: Great While It Lasted

In politics, when you catch a whiff of brimstone, you might be well-advised to look for the devil. Thus it is with the heretofore (mostly) secret NSA program to keep track of all telephone calls in the United States. The International Herald Tribune sets the table as follows:

"WASHINGTON In the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e- mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials. . .

As in other areas of intelligence collection, including interrogation methods for suspected terrorists, Cheney and Addington [Cheney's legal adviser] took an aggressive view of what was permissible under the Constitution, said the two senior intelligence officials."

Credit is due to the Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF"), which has been reporting on this subject for quite some time, now; but since they're a civil liberties watchdog organization, it goes without saying that nobody heeded their warnings. Still, in light of recent developments, the EFF's full allegations might bear repeating. The EFF's claim is that:

In the largest "fishing expedition" ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to "data-mine" the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be "linked" to "suspicious activities," suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.[emphasis added]

These allegations are the subject of a pending lawsuit, which lawsuit is in turn the subject of a pending motion to dismiss which has been filed by the Attorney General's office. The AG's main argument, in essence, is that the case must be dismissed because all evidence connected with the alleged program falls under the "national security privilege," and that therefore even allowing the lawsuit itself to proceed would be a dangerous breach of national security.

A Washington Post/ABC poll published on Friday, May 12, 2006 found that 63 per cent of Americans thought the NSA programm was an "acceptable" means of gathering data.

I have two problems with the NSA program of collecting records of all telephone calls, and I don't think either one of them has occurred to the majority of Americans who seem to be telling pollsters they have no problem with it.

First, I think there's no logical reason, if the President's argument is accepted, why he *couldn't* randomly tap into domestic telephone conversations (or have computers tap into all of them), if he believed it was in the national interest. I find that troubling.

Second, there's absolutely no guarantee that the information the NSA gathers will be used *only* to hunt down terrorists. Until now, the very secrecy of the program acted as a sort of rough guarantee aganst its abuse. But if it's acknowledged that the program exists, and the public signals that it's O.K. with that, then the government can use the information it gathers for any purpose at all.

I predict it won't be long at all before the database's use is expanded to broader and broader classes of criminal investigations. Eventually, it could end up being used for *all* of them. Or even just to get them started. The Administration could even end up using unrestricted surveillance as a tool for tripping up its political opponents.

And THAT, I have a huge problem problem with. I could almost tolerate this program if I could be absolutely certain that the information gathered would only ever be used to investigate terrorists, and that it would never be expanded to include other types of information. But the Administration is claiming that the President has unlimited authority and can do whatever he likes.

That's an argument we can't afford to let them win.

Make Immigration A State Issue

I was pretty much indifferent to the idea of a Spanish national anthem until I read this:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) introduced a resolution yesterday calling for“'The Star-Spangled Banner' and other traditional patriotic compositions to be recited or sung solely in English. The resolution states that the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance and other 'statements or songs that symbolize the unity of the nation . .should be recited or sung in English, the common
language of the United States.'

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) co-sponsored the bill, as did Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

The legislation is a response to a Spanish-language version of the national anthem, 'Nuestro Himno,' which was released Friday.

Alexander said on the chamber floor, 'I worry, Mr. President, that
translating our national anthem will actually have the effect of dividing us. It adds to the celebration of multiculturalism in our society, which has eroded our understanding of our common American culture.'"

After reading that piece, I tumbled off the fence. Bill Frist is the most divisive figure in the Senate, with the possible exception of Mitch MCConnell. I've never heard of Johnny Isakson or Pat Roberts before today; but Jim Bunning is known to the heavens as a crazy motherfucker, and Ted Stevens is the most rappacious consumer of national tax revenues in the whole of the United States Congress.

So I read that article, and weighed those Republican Senators against the sweet Korean lady who dry-cleans my business suits. Against the wry Puerto Rican kid who serves me coffee. Against the Chinese family that keeps my local deli open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Against the aristocratic Indian girl from Bangalore who helped me write a postgraduate graduate paper on the relationship between Indian sacred texts and English common law. . . and I realized something.

If I had to, I mean if I had to choose a half-dozen people to kick out of the country, and I had to make my decision on the basis of who I thought best embodied American values. . . I'd keep the bright-eyed, diligent immigrants from my section of Brooklyn, and load Jim Bunning on the next Greyhound bus to Guatemala.

And, yes, I recognize that he'd do just the same for me. And that's my point. Jim Bunning and I have entirely different notions of who is and isn't a "real American", and the divide is most likely a reflection of the one between the culture of Kentucky and New York.

So be it. Why not make immigration a state matter, instead of a national one? Give national citizens and the bearers of green cards the run of the country, but let the states chart their own course within their own borders? New York might welcome those who Texas turns away; and the gain would be New York's. My great-great-great grandfather (Isadore Viner, of Austria, if it matters) disembarked from steerage not 5 miles from where I sit right now. It was the 1840s, and he was lugging a battered silver samovar on his back. That samovar, and some pots, and who knows what other portable tin and iron junk, were his only possessions.

I don't think I'm alone, among New Yorkers, in being grateful that the likes of Jim Bunning weren't waiting for him on the shore; or in wondering, with more than a touch of resentment, just who sent for him. My guess is: nobody. And that "nobody" had exactly the right idea.

These Republican assholes have a lot of nerve decrying "divisiveness" and "parasitism" by newcomers to this country. To a man, they all come from states that get more than $1.25 for every dollar of Federal taxes they pay. Let Ted Stevens take his sticky fingers out of my wallet, before he presumes to lecture me on how much illegal immigration is costing him. I'd rather pay for illegal immigrants' emergency room visits than his "bridges to nowhere"; and I'd rather hit myself in the head with a hammer than listen to these Republican blowhards spout off about how "divisive" they consider a song sung in Spanish.

Screw these people. They're trying to be nationalists, and they have no understanding of the nation they pretend they're representing.