Big Brother Bush

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Thu, 29 Dec 2005 05:11:12 -0500 (EST)

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Big Brother Bush

 

 

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/30175/

 

 

Big Brother Bush

 

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted December 29, 2005.

 

 

I don't mean to scare you silly -- but there's a reason we have never

given our government this kind of power.

 

 

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Thirty-five years

ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar

Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided some Americans had

unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying

on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently

like Crazy Richard Milhous.

 

For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid

Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding

that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a

certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a

man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in

watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the

laws and Constitution of our country.

 

The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it

because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient

justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John

Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.

 

The creepy part is the overlap. Damned if they aren't still here,

after all these years, the old Nixon hands -- Dick Cheney and Donald

Rumsfeld, the whole gang whose yearning for authoritarian government

rose like a stink over the Nixon years. Imperial executive. Bring back

those special White House guard uniforms. Cheney, like some malignancy

that cannot be killed off, back at the same old stand, pushing the

same old crap. Of course, they tell us we have to be spied on for our

own safety, so they can catch the terrorists who threaten us all.

Thirty-five years ago, they nabbed a film star named Jean Seberg and a

bunch of people running a free breakfast program for poor kids in

Chicago. This time, they're onto the Quakers. We are not safer.

 

We would be safer, as the 9-11 commission has so recently reminded us,

if some obvious and necessary precautions were taken at both nuclear

and chemical plants -- but that is not happening because those

industries contribute to Republican candidates. Republicans do not ask

their contributors to spend a lot of money on obvious and necessary

steps to protect public safety. They wiretap, instead. You will be

unsurprised to learn that, first, they lied. They didn't do it. Well,

OK, they did it, but not very much at all. Well, OK, more than that. A

lot more than that. OK, millions of private e-mail and telephone calls

every hour, and all medical and financial records.

 

You may recall in 2002 it was revealed that the Pentagon had started a

giant data-mining program called Total Information Awareness (TIA),

intended to search through vast databases " to increase information

coverage by an order of magnitude. "

 

From credit cards to vet reports, Big Brother would be watching us.

This dandy program was under the control of Adm. John Poindexter,

convicted of five felonies during Iran-Contra, all overturned on a

technicality. This administration really knows where to go for good

help -- it ought to bring back Brownie.

 

Everybody decided that TIA was a terrible idea, and the program was

theoretically shut down. As often happens with this administration, it

turned out they just changed the name and made the program less

visible. Data-mining was a popular buzzword at the time, and the

administration was obviously hot to have it. Bush established a secret

program under which the National Security Agency could bypass the FISA

(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court and begin eavesdropping

on Americans without warrants.

 

As many have patiently pointed out, the entire program was

unnecessary, since the FISA court is both prompt and accommodating.

There is virtually no possible scenario that would make it difficult

or impossible to get a FISA warrant -- it has granted 19,000 warrants

and rejected only a handful.

 

I don't like to play scary games where we all stay awake late at

night, telling each other scary stories -- but there's a reason we

have never given our government this kind of power. As the late Sen.

Frank Church said, " That capability could at any time be turned around

on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left,

such is the capacity to monitor everything: telephone conversations,

telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. "

 

And if a dictator took over, the NSA " could enable it to impose total

tyranny. " Then we always get that dreadful goody-two-shoes response,

" Well, if you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to

worry about, do you? "

 

Folks, we KNOW this program is being and will be misused. We know it

from the past record and current reporting. The program has already

targeted vegans and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals --

and, boy, if those aren't outposts of al-Qaida, what is? Could this be

more pathetic?

 

This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United

States is going to have to understand and admit he has done something

very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this

happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the

press, the Congress all functioned superbly. Anyone think we're up to

that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic?

 

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.