In his opinion piece from yesterday, George Will said this:

George Will: The administration’s argument about the legality of the NSA program also has been discordant with the administration’s argument about the urgency of extending the Patriot Act. Many provisions of that act are superfluous if a president’s wartime powers are as sweeping as today’s president says they are.

More below the fold. Crossposted at the Gore Portal.

Keywords: Patriot Act, FISA, Goerge Will, impeachment, S. 2271, Russ Feingold,  Al Gore
He also said the following on “This Week”:

George Will: Under this president’¡Çs sweeping assertion, not to say monarchical assertion, of executive powers . . . at least 24 provisions of the Patriot Act are superfluous. Why do they need that legislation?

In the Senate proceedings on this matter, as the reader may know, the four GOP senators that supported the filibuster of the conference report in December wilted to the pressure from the whitehouse, struck a deal with the whitehouse, and authored the measure S. 2271 which applies cosmetic modifications to the the stalled conference report 109-333 on Patriot Act reauthorization. The cloture motion to end the debate on that bill passed on a 96-3 vote earlier today.

But, apparently the final vote on S. 2271 has been postponed by two weeks from Sen. Feingold’s statement.

Here is a simple argument that I’d like to make (based partly on things that have been said before):

  1. if the constitution allows Bush, in the name of a hyped up “GWOT”, to do whatever he deems appropriate, then why does he need the PATRIOT act in the first place?
  2. if it doesn’t, then the administration stands in breach of an existing law, namely FISA, and hence impeachment proceedings against both Bush and Cheney should be launched immediately. Why would anyone instead grant law-breakers continued enormous additional authorities?

Let us note however that there are provisions of the PATRIOT Act that few disagree with, e.g. those pertaining to intelligence sharing.

The above logic leads me to propose the following approach (leaving aside for the time being the violations of the rule of law by the administration):

  1. Split the patriot act into two parts, part A and Part B, to be written as separate measures.
  2. Part A should address the non-controversial parts of the Patriot Act such as intelligence sharing. This can be made permanent (i.e. without sunsets) but with some congressional oversight.
  3. Part B should take up the provisions from the current act that stand to infringe upon civil liberties in the name of security. These should be openly and extensively debated, and only the absolutely required portions should then be stapled as a measure. Outrageous provisions that have been tucked away under the current reauthorization such as this should be stripped away. Half-yearly congressional overviews and an overall 2 year sunset on the entire bill (making for periodic reevaluation) must be imposed.

A perhaps simpler and reasonable alternative is this: pass the senate version S. 1389 of the act that was unanimously passed in July of 2005 with the additional imposition of a 2 year expiration of the entire bill and again stripping away unacceptable injections. According to Sen. Feingold “This is not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill“. The problem that even Sen. Feingold doesn’t seem to be highlighting is that even that version would make most of the act permanent. Repealing an existing law is very hard to do, unless you control all three bodies involved in the legislative process (WH/House/Senate), and so when would we be able to make it “perfect”? Therefore it becomes imperative to sunset the entire act by imposing a 2 year expiration period.

Tell me why this isn’t the approach that we should demand, and the Senate democrats undertake, by using the parliamentary provision of filibuster to the extent necessary?

With regards to the FISA violations, the whitehouse is already trying to sidetrack this issue. We must not let up on pushing hard for thorough investigations, both by the congress and by an independent investigator, of apparent violations of the rule of law.

The effectiveness of the congressional democrats and conscientious/principled republicans will be put to test on this matter of not allowing the whitehouse and/or the republicans to shove administrative overreach and subversion of the rule of law under the rug. Granted, the primary tool at their disposal at being able to do anything rests delicately on the 4 vote margin they have to wage and sustain a filibuster, but the very foundation of our constitution is at stake in this matter, and those that fail to make their best effort will have undermined the constitution themselves.

Stop going along to get along.