Hypocrisy.
I’m starting to think that when it comes to such programs as Total Information Awareness, supporters must be able to pass the following litmus test:
Would you support the same power in the hands of a Democratic administration?
I imagine very few would. Certainly, as then-Senator Ashcroft makes very, very clear in this article written back in October 1997, our current Attorney General would fail miserably.
But while it’s well and good (and funny, in a black, auto-Schadenfreudeian sense) to scoff at the hypocrisy of the hands-off, smaller-government, conservative right wing currently in power, there’s a deeper and more troubling lesson to be drawn: attacks of this nature on the Bill of Rights and our civil liberties aren’t so much a problem of right (or left); they’re a problem of people in power. “The Democrats have not been strong on civil and constitutional rights,” says Jeralyn Merritt. “The Clinton administration, which we admire for other accomplishments, was terrible in these areas.” (She expands on it hereabouts, but be sure to click through to her 1996 article.) —After all, Bush initially opposed the draconian barrel of pork he just signed into being; it was Congressional Democrats who pressured him into (so enthusiastically) picking it up and running with it.
That said, it’s worth noting the nine nays on Homeland Security:
Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts; Paul Sarbanes, D-Maryland; Jim Jeffords, I-Vermont; Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii; Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii; Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia; Carl Levin, D-Michigan; Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, D-South Carolina; and Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin.
Are your Senators on the list? You might want to let ’em know how you feel about that…
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Clinton Was Not an Enemy of the Constitution
A few bloggers (see Bo Cowgill, for example, who graciously has posted a clarifying addendum) thought our post on who's