"The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with Al Qaida, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
Ugh. He so has a point.
When I consider unwarranted wiretapping, the red lights in my head start flashing "Illegal! Illegal!" But when I hear the justification, such as above in the President's State of the Union Address, I see the need for offensive security, not just defensive security.
I mean, I'm an American. If someone is calling Al Qaida, well hell, I want to know about it too!
Here's the problem. Allowing the administration to intrude into our lives requires a certain amount of trust. At this point, I trust the Bush administration as far as I can throw it. Between crooked lobbyists, a controversial war and the economy, I don't think the public is willing to give him this one.
It's the American way. In America, we are used to, oh I don't know, rights? It comes from our heritage. Does anyone remember the first King George in American history? We did not take to that too lightly. I say that we should take his wiretaps, and throw them in the Boston Harbor with the rest of the trash!
It is obviously easier to conduct wiretapping without a warrant. It's easier to do everything without a warrant. We all watch "Law and Order" five days a week on TNT (come on, this is Tufts). If they didn't have to get warrants, they could probably make more arrests, but they would also be breaking the constitution.
Okay, stop writing your online criticism about how stupid I am because I compared the President's authorization of wiretapping to "Law and Order" and listen up. Warrants exist to protect the citizens. That means you and me. Most of the people who support this wiretapping don't think it will ever happen to them. But first of all, you don't know that. Second of all, what about the innocent people being wiretapped right now? Does being an American all of the sudden mean that we only care about our own rights and not the rights of others? If there are no warrants being made by a court, then that means that we don't even know if these people should be wiretapped in the first place. Then we don't know what is being done with the information, or if they keep gathering information just in case someone happens to become a terrorist. We don't know, and the 535 members of Congress who are supposed to write the laws don't know.
President Bush has gone so far to imply that if he could have had this power before 9/11, those attacks could have been prevented. While I would never blame his administration for the disaster, I will go as far as saying this: don't make the civil liberties of the people suffer for your past intelligence mistakes. He did have the power to wiretap before 9/11, but he needed a warrant, which was almost always granted. So why this secrecy? Why this need for imperial-like power?
Sadly, I have no clue. I do understand that there are many aspects of American security that I could never expect to comprehend, and I am glad that there is someone "up on that wall" to protect me. But this smells fishy to me, and when something smells fishy, it usually is. Also, secrets are kept to conceal guilt. For instance, when I think that I am going to fail a test, I don't even tell my parents about the test until after I have gotten the grade back. Thus I am concealing something because while I could state my case and possibly convince my parents of why I received a bad grade, it's just easier to keep it a secret. It's just easier.
If President Bush wanted to take the easy way out, he should have stayed Governor of Texas (we never get anything done in my state).
In conclusion, President Bush claims that this unwarranted wiretapping has prevented attacks. This may be true, but there is no reason to believe that warranted wiretapping would not have produced the same outcome. What it really has done is increased the power of President Bush, and for a president who has not really done the best job with his uncontested power, this simply cannot bode well for the future.
I thought that by the time I grew up, we would no longer have to "fight for my rights" as our grandparents and parents did (and apparently the Beastie Boys).
It turns out, we do.
Meredith Pickett is a sophomore majoring in History and Political Science.
