HIgh Crimes and Misdemeanors

Today the Washington Post reports that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner released classified information (that may have been illegal) when he announced that a Federal Intelligence judge had declared parts of the the administration's NSA spy program illegal and that this is why Democrats are running around trying to update and expand the government's wiretapping authority.

There are so many issues here it's hard to know where to begin. But foremost would seem to be that the president commanded the NSA to engage in ILLEGAL spying on American citizens. Regardless of whether Congress decides that the government needs expanded spying powers, and whether it can do so while still securing Americans' rights to not have their privacy violated by the government without a darn good reason, the fact remains that this administration was engaged in something that could certainly qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors".

This administration knowingly and willfully went outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's (FISA) court and ignored the FISA requirements for wiretapping. (FISA was passed in 1978 to rein in the Nixon administration's use of warrantless wiretapping.)

Whether the Bush administration could have accomplished the same thing legally and whether their intentions were noble really misses the point - OUR DEMOCRACY CAN NOT SURVIVE an executive branch that thinks it's above the law. The only way this form of government can work is if every single person in this country is subject to the law.

We must remember that the heart of any dictatorship is a leader, who for whatever reason, feels he answers to no one -that he is above the law. We must remember that Hitler was not seen as a monster in the beginning. Because while almost all Germans thought that the pendulum had swung a little too far in one direction, they assumed it would correct itself before too long.

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression." -- Justice William O. Douglas