In today’s column, Glenn Greenwald [1] of Salon.com [2] offers links to numerous credible resources that document:
1. That the U.S. Government has illegally spied [3]on thousands of Americans and continues [4]to illegally spy on Americans.
2. That the White House blatantly lies about this gross misuse of government power;
3. That Congress (with the notable exception of Russ Feingold [5]) doesn’t care enough about this issue to do anything about it, and readily buys the lies of the White House [6], and
4. If unchecked power is vested in government officials, they’re going to abuse that power;
Greenwald’s suggestion is that the existing three branches of government need a big push because they are simply not getting the job done:
Maybe the only way to ensure that vast surveillance powers aren’t abused is to have something like an independent check on how those powers are exercised — a check from, say, one of the branches other than the one exercising those powers. It’s understandable that our Congress hasn’t yet decided that this is necessary because the whole “checks-and-balances” concept is quite new, just a couple hundred years old [7].
Greenwald’s windup spells a-p-a-t-h-y:
At some point — many, many years from now — there will be some report issued by an executive agency or a Congressional Committee finally describing the nature of the illegal spying programs implemented by the Bush administration and detailing all of the abuses. And the same members of Congress who looked the other way and then voted to legalize these programs will express all kinds of outrage and surprise.
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