Absolute Power is Absolutely Great, Says Justice Department

Today I was unsurprised to learn that the crack lawyers (or is it lawyers on crack?) at the Department of Justice have determined that the President acted legally when he ordered the NSA to perform warrantless wiretaps on US citizens. There seems to be two major arguments here.

The first argument is that the resolution authorizing the use of force against Al Qaeda gave the President the authority to spy on Americans in this way. Never mind that the Congressional Research Service has already shown that argument to be bunk. And never mind that Senator Daschle, Senate Majority Leader at the time the resolution was passed, has said that the Senate explicitly decided not to give the President such authority in that resolution. But the TV talking heads will go endlessly back and forth on this question, and this "balance" will serve its intended purpose of confusing the hell out of everyone. Much like high school debate, the point here isn't to say things that are true, but to leave no claim unanswered. Mission Accomplished!

The second argument, however, is the more important one, and it goes something like this: "Fuck Congress — the President can do whatever he damn well wants!" As the Washington Post article puts it:

The Justice Department also argues that the inherent presidential powers in Article II of the Constitution — to wage war — cannot be abridged or impended in the context of a global terrorism fight. Justice lawyers say they believe that the president's powers are consistent with FISA but that if there is any question of a conflict, the president's powers trump FISA.

Now, this strikes me as a very weak legal argument, but then again, I'm not a lawyer. Fortunately, some people who are lawyers are saying the same thing. But let's step back and try to grasp exactly what they administration is saying. Properly contextualized, here's the argument:

"We're at war. This war will be long, and may never end. This war reaches around the globe, and does not stop at our borders. Indeed, it does not stop at your front door. While we are fighting this war, the President has the constitutional authority as Commander in Chief to use whatever means he finds appropriate. His authority to do that supercedes the laws of Congress. He can circumvent the Courts if he sees fit. And his constitutional authority even overrides other parts of the Constitution, such as the 4th amemdment."

Now that's pretty sobering when you think about it. The President is claiming absolute power, with no checks or balances, forever, to wage the global war on terror. And given the "six degreess of Kevin Bacon" nature of the GWOT (you get a phone call from someone who got an email from their friend who used to live next door to someone who's brother-in-law….), there is nothing that is necessarily outside of the President's absolute, unchecked authority.

No doubt some people — mostly on the other side of the political spectrum, I would imagine — will defend the President's despotic power grab on the grounds that they have nothing to hide, and that President is a good person who would not abuse his authority. It is very difficult to have meaningful arguments with people like this, however, since they've given up on the very premise that makes such an argument important — that democracy and the rule of law are inherently good things.

Even so, I imagine that many of those people haven't thought out the implications of this position very clearly, and will have a change of heart when it's President Hillary who's weilding the GWOT cudgel. But the important thing to remember here is that it isn't the person with the power that matters as much as the nature of the power itself. And as much as I might enjoy the thought of Attorney General Michael Moore doing random searches of a bunch of holier-than-thou Republicans with "nothing to hide", that's not the best thing we can do for our democracy. It's better for us all if we just agree that the Bill of Rights is a good thing and continue to insist upon having an actual President, not a king.

Feed Me, New York Times

Well, that's odd — it looks like the New York Times hasn't updated its RSS feeds in over a day. How annoying.

It's bad enough that the Times is locking some of its content behind a subscription wall. And it's bad enough that the Times will expire their normal links after a couple of weeks. But if it's not going to update the one means by which their still-free articles can be linked to permanently, then why link to them at all?