THERE’S A PATTERN HERE
Here we go again.
With the latest revelation by the NY Times of a secret program that examines banking records of Americans and others in a vast international database, DICK Cheney once again says shoot the messenger. And if he had his way, we think, he’d pull the trigger. But would he?
“What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people,” Mr. Cheney said, in impromptu remarks at a fund-raising luncheon for a Republican Congressional candidate in Chicago. “That offends me.”

Well, it’s the onslaught on our privacy in the name of the so-called “war on terror” that offends me and everyone else who fears for the survival of our U.S. Constitution as a meaningful document. But is there something else going on here as well?

There seems to be a recurring pattern associated with these spying revelations.

As with all the other disclosures by the press, Cheney routinely reassures us that it is all perfectly legal and necessary for our protection. “The fact of the matter is that these are good, solid, sound programs,” the vice president said. “They are conducted in accordance with the laws of the land. They’re carried out in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional authority of the president of the United States. They are absolutely essential in terms of protecting us against attacks.”

When he evokes, as he always does, “the constitutional authority of the president” to justify the spying, he is really evoking the theory of the unitary executive. The theory argues that the power of Congress to divest the President of control of the executive branch is limited.

Then, of course,the next piece of the pattern is to make a show of this latest controversy in the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had sent letters on Friday to both Treasury Secretary John Snow and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the issue. While he declined to release the letters, he said he was concerned about the legal authority for the operation. “Why does it take a newspaper investigation to get them to comply with the law?” the senator asked. “That’s a big, important point.”

Yeah, a big important point that will, like all the other spying revelations, be briefly questioned then forgotten by Congress. Remember the other hearings held by the Judiciary Committee? Remember Alberto Gonzales telling them that Congress actually
gave the President the authority by passing the Iraq war resolution?

The pattern continues on the cable news shows with the media basically getting behind the Bush administration. In the end we will have lost another battle to protect our Constitution in the name of “the war on terror”.
But wait a minute. If this story hadn’t been revealed the surveillance of our bank records would still be going on. We just wouldn’t know about it. But now we do know about it. And that, my friends, is by design. Why have a secret program when you can go public? The purpose of this recurring spectacle is to in the end have us embrace our own loss of rights in the name of security and await the next startling revelation.

But we don’t embrace it. Everyone I talk to sees what is going on. The truth is these guys aren’t really very good at what they are trying to do. Their own sense of superiority prevents them from seeing how transparent their real agenda is.
These smug traitors, so pleased with themselves, who orchestrate this charade don’t even know that we are on to them.

Brian
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