Balancing the Scales of Power

As we know by now, President Bush has green lighted spying on Americans without warrants. We know this because he says he has. He says he is going to continue to do so. He says these actions are in the interest of national security. Maybe it is. He might have our safety in mind. I don't think there is anything wrong with spying on potential terrorists. The only problem is that there is no need for him spy without a warrant. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the President to do what he says he has been doing with a warrant. In fact FISA rarely rejects a request for a warrant. The FISA court also doesn't slow the spying down. You can spy and then ask for the warrant up to 72 hours later. So why is he bypassing the legal process? Bringing up 9/11 isn't going to cut it this time.

Yes it is true, everything changed after 9/11. We need to be smarter with our intelligence. One good aspect of the Patriot Act is that it allows the different intelligence agencies to share there findings. Sharing of intelligence is one of the things we did not have before 9/11 that could have prevented the attacks. This sharing of intelligence doesn't take away from our civil liberties. Spying on American citizens without a warrant and holding American citizens without due process does affect our civil liberties. Ben Franklin said,"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor saftey."

He is right. There is a balance between the 3 branches of government. President Bush thinks that the executive branch has the most power. He is wrong. When he bypasses the FISA court and spys without a warrant he is saying that he doesn't have to answer to the Judicial branch. When he holds Americans as enemy combatants for three years, as in the Jose Padilla case, he is saying that he doesn't trust the Judicial branch of our government to a good enough job trying terrorists. The problem with this is that he doesn't get to decide this. The events of September 11 didn't give him the ability to usurp power from the other branches.

We haven't been able to know about this because we have been living in the fog of 9/11. The media has giving the Bush administration a pass in the last few years. Now the fog is being lifted. We need to let the President know that he has to protect us but not at the cost of our civil liberties. If we let the President continue to abuse the priviledges of the exective branch we will lose one of pillars of our democracy. The balance of power.