Gonzales' speech at Georgetown University yesteday got a fair amount of press coverage. The certerpiece of the speech was apparently a claim that "the requirements of a secret intelligence court are too cumbersome for rapid pursuit of suspected terrorists."
I am skeptical. But let's assume that is true. Isn't the remdy for that problem to go to Congress and have the law amended rather than simply ignoring it based on some trumped up legal theories that are both baseless and (if accepted) extraordinarily dangerous? Laws have a nasty way of being inconvenient at times. Where that inconvenience truly does interfere with effortts to protect the nation's security, I am aware of few (read no) instances in which Congress has refused to amend the law to address the problem. But to just arrogate to oneself (even when that self is the President) the power to simply ignore the law is to deprive the law itself with any meaning as a constraint on Presidential action. To me that is a far greater long term risk than any risk posed by terrorism.
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As my friend so astutely put it, "FISA is a chumpy, stupid law, but it is the LAW."
This issue brings to mind another, more distinguished, quotation:
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure. The World War II relocation camp cases, and the Red scare and McCarthy-era internal subversion cases are only the most extreme reminders that when we allow fundamental freedoms to be sacrificed in the name of real or perceived exigency, we invariably come to regret it.
- Justice Thurgood Marshall
Becuase of it terseness, I actually prefer the one (attributed to Ben Franklin by The Blade) that showed up in the paper last week:
"Those willing to sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
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