"Due Process vs. Efficient Enforcement " and Spygate

[Silverhair]

A popular genre of film is the Dirty Harry type of cop film. In the genre the policeman wants to catch the bad guys (And the bad guys are genuinely bad.)but is hemmed in by legal technicalities, so he goes outside the law to enforce the law. In the end he gets the bad guy, usually killing him, and all is well. "Death Wish" and "Death Wish II" (III & IV sucked)looked at this tension very well, although Bronson didn't play a cop he was still a "good guy".

As liberals we recognize the silliness of the premise of the films (It's is OK to go outside the law to enforce the law)and we realize that DUE PROCESS by the gov't is part of the foundation of our liberties. If the gov't is given the power to go outside the law, then it will ultimately turn into a tyranny, even with the best of intentions of the people in power. Even a so-called wise benevolent dictatorship is still a dictatorship.

So we seek to establish a balance between limiting the gov't (Due Process) and creating a gov't that can efficiently protect us.

In times of emergency, we have always given the gov't greater power. (When your house is on fire, no search warrant is needed to enter your home.) And we have always been able to re-limit the gov't when the emergency is over. During the CIVIL WAR, WWI & WWII, some civil rights were trampled on, some extremely harshly. But the wars ended and the gov't was not able to justify itself and had to retreat from such an aggressive stance.

So the balance point between Due Process and Efficient Enforcement is a moving one, depending on the situation.

But now the landscape has changed. Terrorism will never be eliminated. It will also be possible for a small groups of nuts to to cause damage to a country out of proportion to their numbers. Bush would have us believe that we have entered into a permanent state of war and that to deal with it he must have greater powers.

Our knee jerk reaction is to simply oppose him, and in that reaction lies a great danger for Democrats that could give the Republicans victory in the next election if we continue to ignore it.

The brutal fact is that 9-11 did occur and there really are such people as terrorists who really do want to do harm to us. Some of them are even home grown terrorists. So knee jerking on this will allow the Repubs to make the claim that the Democrats are trying to block attempts to protect Americans.

Our task is two fold, if we are to win elections.

1. Reexamine exactly where the line between Due Process and Efficient Enforcement must now be drawn. It has always been a sliding scale.

2. We must educate the public on the importance of due process and how due process actually does work to protect American.

If we fail at those tasks, the Republicans will hammer us on Nat'l Security issues.

[The Magistrate]

1. Excellent Points, Sir

Where that line lies now is a matter we should discuss fully and sensibly.

It does seem to me, though, that the current situation is being used as an excuse to act outside not only the law but Constitutional principle by the present regime. The doctrine its creatures are promoting, that a President, as Commander in Chief, is exempt from law and Constitutional restriction in matters concerning war is pernicious and false, and a recepie for dictatorship, particularly in a state of metaphorical war such as this.

"Terrorism" is and will always remain a police problem, albeit one on a large scale, and of a nature that may on occassion, such as Afghanistan, require a military force to create conditions that would enable police to operate. It is in no wise an actual war, and as a practical and legal fact, we are not in a state of war today in regard to this. Therefore there could not be any question of war-time powers veing applicable, even if the arguments in favor of same existing in a state of war were to be granted.

[welshTerrier2]

2. bush broke the law

spying on US "persons" is against the law ... period ...

if bush believed greater latitude was needed, he should have sought relief either in the courts or in the Congress ...

i have no problem with your advocating for a thoughtful review of how much authority should be ceded to the Executive branch if national circumstances have changed ... but let's make damned sure that we NEVER TOLERATE allowing a President to whatever the hell he wants to do ...

bush has planted news stories in Iraq ... bush and cheney held secret meetings with their friends in the oil cartel ... bush lied about the evidence leading up to the invasion of Iraq ... his administration outed a major CIA operation when it went public about Plame ... bush even lied about the extent of the spying that he had authorized ...

let's not toss around terms like "knee jerk" quite so freely ... this administration, perhaps more than any other in the history of the country, has shown that it absolutely cannot be trusted ... if we turn our backs on our Constitutional liberties and fail to enforce a system of checks and balances among the branches of government, we may lose every vestige of our democracy ... worrying about what the republicans might claim about us should not be our first concern ...