NSA Wiretapping: Security vs. Liberty

There are two reasons that the Bush administration didn’t go to Congress to change the law to make the NSA wiretapping more politically feasible. First, Congress had no authority to restrict the war powers of the executive. The Constitution gives the President the duty to protect Americans from enemies both foreign and domestic. Every president since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978’s passage has asserted that he retained inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes. The Bush administration was breaking a law that was unconstitutional. Second, more importantly, secrecy was part of the program. Only few in the Congress were informed of the program, with good reason. The NSA leak hurts American national security revealing to our enemies a tool we use to gather intelligence on them.

Has the shit hit the fan over this NSA wiretapping? No. The Democrats aren’t going to be able to win elections in 2006 with this issue. Most Americans understand the need for this program. In the face of the terrorist threat we must temporarily sacrifice some civil liberties.

Some say that we’re losing this war because we’re sacrificing our civil liberties which our Constitution was made to protect. They’re wrong because actually losing the war is worse. We can cease the NSA wiretapping program and even the Patriot act once the terrorist threat is gone. We can’t bring people back to life that were killed in a terrorist attack.

We have to sacrifice some of our liberties to protect the rest of them. During the Civil War President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus abandoning due process and ordered confederate sympathizers printing presses destroyed violating their First amendment rights. In World War II President Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese Americans for the duration of the war. What good is the Constitution if America is destroyed?