I wonder how many Canadians who pay attention to the goings-on in Washington wonder why stronger measures aren’t being taken or investigations launched in the question of illegal electronic surveillance against American citizens by the Bush administration?

Well they are, but in our own American way of political shadow boxing. As I write this, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is being grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee over the President’s use of electronic surveillance on American citizens without warrants.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) is doing his best to grill the Attorney General. I note that Gonzales will answer questions his way no matter how bluntly the progressive Senator from Vermont asks them.

Leahy asks point blank: does the President’s authority to collect information and authorize wiretaps on American citizens without warrant authorize the opening of the first class mail of American citizens without a warrant, yes or no?

Gonzalez refuses to say yes or no. Instead, he claims that Congress’ authorization to use force against Iraq gave the administration blanket authority to authorize wiretaps against American citizens without warrants.

Leahy seems surprised that the administration believed that senators would understand that their authorization to launch a war against Iraq would instead give President Bush a “blank cheque” to write certain civil rights and liberties out of the Constitution of the United States.

Gonzales patiently reiterates that the language authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the U.S. from terrorism allowed the President to wave a magic wand and ignore all other U.S. laws including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which provided for special courts to authorize electronic surveillance against U.S. citizens.

Leahy didn’t realize that and I daresay neither did most Americans. Too late. Too bad.

Gonzales also told the Senate that Congress’ authorization to use force also allowed the President to detain U.S. citizens like Jose Padilla without trial.

“And detention is far more intrusive than electronic surveillance,” Gonzales said.

Indeed. But in the Bush administration, the legalities are all the same.

No matter what objections Leahy or other Senators come up with, the Attorney General and his President can fall on their one big trump card: as long as they can claim the country is at war, anything they say goes.

And Republican senators like Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), can come to the microphone defending the President’s ability to conduct business as a virtual dictator as long as the United States remains in a “state of war,” which it will, forever, from this point forward. Bank on it.

In fact, Gonzales is asked by Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) when we would know when the war was over. His reply: “When al Qaeda is destroyed and no longer poses a threat to the United States.” Gonzales admits that al Qaeda has mutated into several forms, so it would seem that the “war” can go on for as long as Bush wants it to. If he says we’re at war, we’re at war.

And the same craven cowardice with which Democrats authorized the attack on Iraq in the hyper-patriotic post 9/11 atmosphere will similarly prevent them from moving too strongly against the President, including doing anything rash like impeachment proceedings.

Impeachment would be portrayed on Fox News as providing aid and comfort to America’s “enemies.”

So instead we have the shadow boxing routine, where Democrats who should have known better, try to give the impression that they are bringing the administration to heel, when in fact, nothing of the sort is happening. They are merely talking the issue to death.

In fact the closest we got to truth in the hearing was a brief disruption where someone in the audience called Gonzales a “fascist.” After the miscreant citizen was ejected from the hearing room, one of the Senators assured Gonzales that he was not a fascist. I believe however, in light of Gonzales’ testimony, that remains an open question.

The fact that Democrats in Congress now try to somehow say they weren’t signing on to the wiretaps, the black bag searches, the opening of mail, the imprisonment of American citizens, the implementation of torture, all without warrants or official legal sanction, rings hollow.

Did these Senators, knowing the man who sat in the White House, believe he was any less devious and power hungry than Lyndon Johnson?

We either have very short memories of American government or are very stupid. Bush has a scrap of paper he believes gives him far more sweeping powers than Johnson ever dreamed of with his Tonkin Gulf resolution.

Some legislators saw it coming. In a forum sponsored by the libertarian CATO Institute in September 1996, Malcolm Wallop, one year out of serving as a Republican Senator from Wyoming, commented on fighting future terrorism.

Read it. Wallop’s warnings and cautions ring true today.

In this forum, Wallop said the following: No one can doubt that there will be terrorist acts in the future. Yet we cannot let fear of such attacks overwhelm us into ceding constitutional rights to any government, however benign its promises. Once ceded, they can never be restored except by revolution.

A comfortable American public no longer does revolution. The bloodless Senate hearings today are evidence that certain rights we once enjoyed in America are now probably gone forever.

Keith Gottschalk

Keith Gottschalk

U.S. Keith Gottschalk has written for daily newspapers in Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. He also had a recent stint as a radio talk show host in Illinois. As a result of living in the high ground...