Deeper and Deeper

Despite heroic efforts on the part of the Bush Administration and its allies in the conservative media to get past the warrantless-spying scandal, it's not going anywhere. On the contrary, every new revelation only deepens the sense of public outrage at the President's Big Brother act.

To recap: it was revealed two weeks ago that after 9/11, President Bush unilaterally ordered the National Security Agency to wiretap the international communications of hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans, ignoring the constitutional and statutory requirements that all wiretap requests must be approved by a court. As the White House responded by claiming Bush has "inherent power" to do whatever he wants and blamed the media for breaking the story, more revelations came out.

Purely domestic calls were tapped as well as international ones. A FISA judge quit in protest of the secret spying operation. The nation's telecommunications companies acquiesced in allowing the NSA to tap wide swathes of domestic communications in what amounted to a massive data-mining operation, searching huge amounts of data for buzzwords to prompt more active listening and intervention.

Bush's defenders claim that the spying stopped terrorist plots and besides, only people with something to hide would object to this indiscriminate warrantless searching. As for the first claim, we have only the Administration's word that plots were exposed and, to put it mildly, their word is worthless. They have abused the public trust so many times that their credibility is completely shot.

And as for the second claim - well, with that attitude, how long will it take before all our telephone calls, E-mails and other communications are subject to permanent tap by an Administration whose motives might not be pure? Will such defenders of an unfettered right to spy on anyone at any time be comfortable with the knowledge that someone is always listening?

Indeed, the White House's motives might not be pure already. There are disturbing rumors that the secret FISA court, which almost always approves wiretap requests, expressed misgivings at Bush's first list of targets for surveillance. This supposedly prompted Bush to make his end run around the law and order the secret spying. If that is the case, who was on the list? And since the spying continues to this day, who is on the list now?

No matter how much the White House and the right wing try to fudge the issue, the controversy is not about wiretapping in and of itself. Wiretapping has long been an accepted and valued part of law enforcement, and tapping criminal suspects with a court order is perfectly legitimate. The issue is that the President ordered the wholesale surveillance of possibly millions of people in willful defiance of the Constitution and federal statute law.

With even some Congressional Republicans aghast at the White House's arrogant power grab, both parties are demanding an investigation and some serious reining-in. Even the once-dreaded word "impeachment" is starting to be whispered in the halls of Congress.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney believe themselves to be above the law, once again exploiting 9/11 to give them an excuse. This cannot be allowed to continue.