The Workday Liberal

In an op-ed in todays Washington Post judge Richard Posner makes an argument for expanding the rights of the administration to spy on Americans. Rather than go point by point to refute what I believe to be incorrect reasoning by the judge, let me focus on the following statement in the article:

The only valid ground for forbidding human inspection of such data is fear that they might be used to blackmail or otherwise intimidate the administration's political enemies. That danger is more remote than at any previous period of U.S. history.

Where has the judge been for the last three years one must wonder. What does he think of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame after her husband publicly disagreed with the presidents state of the union speech. This one action by the administration is proof positive that the judge is absolutely incorrect with his reasoning. The signal given by this one action was unmistakable. Political opponents of this administration are fair game for ruination by any means necessary.

Consider the following: Karl Rove, widely accepted as having taken part in the outing of a covert CIA agent for political reasons, still reports to work each day and holds a top secret clearance. Mr. Rove is legendary for his willingness to bend ethics and the law in pursuit of political goals and in the cause of ruining political opponents. At some point a bell is going to go off in a reporters head, and they will ask one of the most important questions that can be asked in these dark times. Regarding the NSA spy program: Is Karl Rove or any other political appointee of this administration privvy to those conversations?

Judge Posner justifies his reasoning with the following quote:

Because of increased political partisanship, advances in communications technology and more numerous and competitive media, American government has become a sieve. No secrets concerning matters that would interest the public can be kept for long.

Once again we are left to wonder... where has this judge been for the last several years. The secretive nature of this administration is absolutely legendary. Maybe the judge can prove his point by alerting the rest of the world who originally leaked Valerie Plames name. Evidently the president himself does not even know that! Or the judge could show how open everything is nowadays by releasing the newly classified techniques approved for detainee interrogation in the army field manual. Who was in the vice president energy task force? Can the judge get us the records of chief justice John Roberts when he was white house counsel? There are dozens of such secrets that a wide swath of citizenry would be very interested in knowing that are kept under wraps by this administration, usually under the guise of national security or executive privelige. The fact is that the notorious obsession with secrecy demonstrated by the administration shows the judges reasoning to back up his original erroneous contention is also just plumb wrong.

Quite simply, this administrations unbridled grab at power whilst keeping the citizenry in the dark about the true state of affairs is precisely the reason we need to check them going forward. If the president can simply create laws as he sees fit in complete secrecy, we have passed from a glorious experiment in democracy to a very close shadow of the tyranny that we threw off in the revolutionary war, complete with kings and rubberstamp legislative bodies. The presidency is dead, long live the king.