January 13, 2006

About Poor King Charles' Domestic Spying Conducted Without a Warrant

Among the oddest observations of a very odd twelvemonth of politics is the increasing obsession that liberals (in politics, in the media, in academe) have with the NSA intercept program, which they insist upon referring to as "Bush's domestic spying which he conducted without a warrant."

Apart from the fact that it is an international, not domestic program, that it consists of intercepts, not spying, and that numerous circuit courts have held that warrants are not necessary (and none has held that they are), I suppose there's nothing wrong with this formulation. But it does seem to creep into everything!

Those of us ancient enough to have gone to school when pupils were actually required to read works of English literature like David Copperfield might remember the character Mr. Dick, who was similarly obsessed with the execution (or murder) of Charles the First, king of England. Speaking of Mr. Dick and his endless "Memorial" account of himself to "the Lord Somebody or other," David says:

I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now....

Every day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me.

Bearing this in mind, read the following paragraph from an AP story about the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings and see if it doesn't strike a chord:

While Judiciary Committee Democrats praised Alito for his intellect, they questioned statements early in the nominee's career on abortion, as well as later rulings on civil rights. Democrats also said they were not satisfied with Alito's responses about presidential powers, especially in light of the Bush administration's expanded domestic spying that has been conducted without warrants.

Aside from the suspicion that someday, somehow this is going to end up before the Court, and that Alito will be sitting on it, and that therefore he might make a judgment -- does the NSA intercept program have any connection whatsoever with Judge Alito? He never worked for the NSA, he never worked for President Bush, he has never been involved in any intelligence agency, so far as I know. He has never heard a case about the NSA intercept program, hence he likely has no particular judicial opinion on it; any opinion he has is just the same as any other well-informed lawyer might have reading news stories and (perhaps) blogposts on the subject.

But we knew that poor King Charles the Martyr would sooner or later stray into the questioning of Alito by Democratic senators, despite the feeble efforts they made to keep him out:

As lawmakers launched Alito's confirmation hearings Monday, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee made clear they had added another item to their list of top-tier issues confronting the New Jersey jurist: whether Alito would permit President Bush to maintain his surveillance of people within the United States, including American citizens, without first seeking warrants from a the federal courts....

"Under the president's spying program, there are no checks and balances," alleged U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "There is no outside review of the legality of this brazen infringement on the civil rights and liberties of the American people."

The NSA intercept program has become the great Democratic obsession of 2005/2006. It crops up in the most unlikely places. One reason Democrats gave for refusing to reauthorize portions of the Patriot Act was poor King Charles' head. King Charles also made an appearance in the Abramoff scandal, as Democrats tried to find a way to tie Charles the Martyr's domestic spying conducted without a warrant to members of Congress accepting golfing trips to Scotland (did poor King Charles golf?)

With the looming Senate hearings that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) has already promised, investigating the precise details of how and why poor King Charles lost his head (and exactly what year it was -- did you say 1649? that seems much too long ago), I don't anticipate any respite. I'm sure that despite heroic efforts, King Charles will creep his royal way into the elections this year, and his martyred head may even be the centerpiece of the Democratic Party's agenda, such as it is, for the next two years.

The Democrats are unfazed by the fact that the last president likewise had no warrant when he cut off poor King Charles' head; in fact, President Clinton's own domestic spying conducted without a warrant -- Echelon -- severed far more heads than Bush's much more limited expanded domestic spying conducted without a warrant. But that, I suppose, is totally different.

Perhaps, if I show that I can get through at least this penultimate paragraph without any mention of poor King Charles' head -- was that 1649, you said? is that in the histories? -- the Democrats will follow suit for the rest of this year.

Oh dear... I'm afraid I shall never keep him out!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 13, 2006, at the time of 2:32 PM

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The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist at January 13, 2006 5:22 PM

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