Vanishing American democracy
US issues - - Posted on July, 9 at 1:40 pm by Ken L
Anyone who takes even a passing interest in events in the USA will be aware of public discussions about warrantless eavesdropping that have been going on since 2005. I’m not going to attempt to summarise the long, involved saga. My purpose here is to note one of the arguments that has been made by supporters of granting retrospective immunity to lawbreakers.
The warrantless eavesdropping on electronic communications, without the knowledge of the parties communicating with each other, was requested by Bush Administration representatives and carried out by private telecommunication companies in apparent breach of the law. It has been going on since 2001 at least and is justified by Bush and company on national security grounds. Since 2005, when it became public knowledge, a number of individuals and organisations have taken legal action against various telecommunications companies for engaging in warrantless eavesdropping. There’s an overview of the issues here if anyone wants a quick update.
A feature of legislation that is still wending its way through Congress is a provision that would grant these telcos immunity from this kind of civil action. In other words even if they have broken the law and caused loss or damage to third parties by doing so, the third parties will be barred from seeking any relief. It looks like this law is about to pass through Congress.
The point I wanted to note was the extraordinary argument being made in support of this ex post facto granting of immunity. It’s hinted at in this editorial in the New York Times:
Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government.
Can there be a more blatant argument than this in favour of authoritarian rule by the executive government in defiance of the rule of law? What holds good for powerful corporations should, of course, apply with even more force to private individuals, so the logical implication of this argument is that anyone should be able to break the law without fear of punishment if the purpose is to ‘co-operate with the government’. In other words, laws made by the legislature can and should be ignored at the request of the executive.
It’s hard to imagine a doctrine that is more likely to erode the principles of democratic government and encourage dictatorship.
Members of the right in the USA seem to be enthusiastic supporters of the doctrine:
… the telecommunications companies which patriotically complied with administration requests for assistance in the emergency conditions that obtained after nearly 3,000 Americans were mass-murdered in the 9/11 attacks will receive retroactive immunity. That is, they will be relieved of the potential billions in liability they (and their shareholders and customers) faced in scores of lawsuits.
Shorter version: doing what the government asks is a Good Thing (and BTW the ‘emergency conditions’ have run for seven years now and Bush shows no inclination to declare them over any time soon).
Remarkably, it’s not only wingnuts who hold views like these; for example from an Obama supporter:
I have yet to see a cogent argument for why telecom companies should be prosecuted in the first place. If you want to prosecute members of the Bush administration, or even Bush himself, that’s one thing. But weren’t the telecom companies just following orders? I don’t know about Glen Greenwald, but when the government tells me to do something, I do it — not because I’m patriotic, but because I’m scared.
So if these are typical views, the right in the USA wants to privilege the executive government over the legislature (and cut the judiciary out of the loop altogether by making retrospective laws) and the centre left is so cowed it will just follow orders regardless of their legality. A more fertile environment for the development of authoritarian government is hard to imagine: one lot wants to abandon democratic principles and procedures and the other does not recognise that individual citizens have certain responsibilities in a democracy that sometimes mean standing up to the government.
I have read that kids in US schools spend a lot of time learning civics so they understand the unique virtues of democratic government. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, the syllabus is in urgent need of drastic revision. I suspect what they are actually learning are the purported unique virtues of US exceptionalism and its manifest destiny.
Posted in US issues |
July 9th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Now let’s see,do I smell democracy here or cronyism and money. Ah, the sweet smell of the latter.And of course George has let ‘emergency conditions’ run for seven years,it’s an itch George can’t scratch,arse/elbow problem.
Sweetly put ‘individual citizens have certain responsibilities in a Democracy and etc;’,I suppose of the individuals may worry that their communications are being monitored and the Patroit Act may be waved and they have a fear of drowning.
Thanks Ken, excellent post.
(It’s pissing ? down snow,white mud, here at the moment, the dogs are holed up as are we, nice time to fire gaze.)
July 9th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
If the workings of democracy were really such a big deal a state of emergency would have been declared when the presidency was decided by a personal friend of the Bush family two terms ago.
Popular wisdom has it that the United States hasn’t been quite itself since Watergate, or Vietnam. I wonder whether it’s been quite itself since the end of the frontier, when there was nowhere else to go to get away from reality.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Lyn, I don’t think that the US has ever been quite itself as it never can define itself.And they have no problem with the ‘frontier’,it’s never ending the wide open spaces to maraud,just the folk therein need a bit of good ‘ole democracy, bigger guns and more bible to see the light to freedom.
Problem is ,to the GWB ‘this man tried to kill my daddy,the lord told me to do this war,most of our imports come from overseas,and on and on ) the earth ain’t flat,so the frontier ends up reversed,like that ever circling bird.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
The guy who wrote that must have recently watched ‘Judgement at Nuremberg.”
(Yes, I know - Godwin’s Law)
July 9th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Thought came to me that the countries that were ‘taken from,over, invaded,liberated(US special)’from the original people who lived and died in their lands, that the take overs are the most strident in the howl for democracy,the fair go,and the oppressors of the original people? Then they ride on the back of success,powered by the lord and a mission (Black Robe is a film worth a look )to spread the magic. And just have a glance around here, PNG, NZ, all the Pacific Islands ,head north to SE Asia and Asia, and guess what finger belongs to that tap on the shoulder,in most cases, the good old christian converters closely followed by the business grifters, then the democracy’s
shoring up the paved way, all for the good of the natives.
Not to worry about the health and social problems such inflected, we are the way.
Just now that the liberators now lesson the ‘flu and syphilis ,the starvation and demeaning of the folk who own?it, we have ways to make you lot even more fore lock tugging, we call it liberation, what was that?,fear,you need an education, stay back after class. Nice looking hills you got there,could be some minerals there,maybe some oil, docile lot ain’t ‘ya, ‘yep well get on just fine.Right!!.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
They have to give up democracy or the empire, looks like the empire is going to win.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Oh what’s the big deal, people???
Clearly… if you’re not doing anything wrong then you’ve got nothing to worry about? Am I right? Right?
And that fuss about demockracy is soooo 19th Century! I mean, it’s not like the vast majority American electorate has been all that keen to REALLY use it.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Indeed Ken:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/karl-roves-contempt-for-t_b_111789.html
July 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
It’s kinda like those self-righteous, American evangelical crusaders in a way.
The more they PREACH about bestowing their “gift” on others, the less likely they are to practice it themselves.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Anyone with any sensibility has long discarded the connection between the words “America” and “democracy”.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
seven years is a longtime to be listening - perhaps to your political opponents? I guess there are truly no secrets in Washington.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The war on democracy practised by the US ruling class abroad has come home.
US policy in Latin America, in fact much of the world since WW2, has now been deemed ‘fit for import’, under the new ‘free trade rules (OK)’, that ensures $1=1 vote.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I actually don’t see a massive need to prosecute the telcos. Yes they shouldn’t have complied with an illegal request, but I think that’s a far smaller sin than making the illegal request in the first place. So in my world if I was the trial judge I would hand out guilty verdicts, fine the telcos a small but non-negligible sum, in the single millions, and send the government executive who made the requests to jail (but only for five years or so).
July 11th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
After Watergate,it is a wonder anyone so surprised, what the executive of the U.S. government can get up to.
A little off topic I know,but.,
I don’t doubt for a nano second,anyone who has ever posted a comment on a blog, has been filed somewhere in the archives some where..
It is not so long ago the South Australian Police special branch,(what ever that meant?) were keeping files on hundreds of prominent South Australian citizens, mostly of left wing bent of course, and telephone taps were the order of the day.
Even the very progressive Premier of that state, a one Don Dunston had a file kept on him, and he demanded to see it.The Police response at the time was along the lines “Don’t be so naive who do you think really runs the State”
He did get his file, and what was in it,was anyones guess,but in the early sixties,there were terrible purges on the homosexual community, and as we know now old Don was Bi.
Well for mine, who really ran the state was the Liberal Party, in government and from the opposition benches.And the way Nelson has the media in his pocket no change.
There will be no prosecutions of the U.S. Telcos, and it will be business as usual,the wire taps will continue, along with internal spying on their own people.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Phill says: “…who really ran the state was the Liberal Party, in government and from the opposition benches.And the way Nelson has the media in his pocket no change.”
Now I ju$t have to a$k my$elf, who run$ the Liberal Party? Any hint$?
July 14th, 2008 at 3:13 am
“There will be no prosecutions of the U.S. Telcos, and it will be business as usual,the wire taps will continue, along with internal spying on their own people.”
Damn right Phill (good to see ya back matey…thought you’d gone AWOL)…lest some mudder fuckas stand up to ‘em.
SAME GOES HERE.
I don’t give a good goddamn (exsqueeze me fudder, but i got doin’s to do) who grabs the nuts of the problem, it’s TIME to REVEAL…so we can get on down that river w/out the pepperin’s from the shore. They can be lethal if we’re cruisin’ in the right direction.
OK…it was my birthday recently. I got a bit emotive. Lookins for change…wingin’ paranoisin’ like me luv on rag. Well, chew yer fckin’ tabaccy, slips down yer drink, have yer goss & yer go. Fair enuff. It was all fun & f*ck you. Chuck the Trolls overboard or make ‘em useful. The fireworks are lightin’ up the way…listen to those goddamn sounds. Like trippin’ w/ a ticket to DESTINATION. Ascending…descending. Vid c’mon’ up in 24 hours…least i got to do somethin’ diff than save yer arses every hour & such…;)
Bears climbin’ outa the hole. Makin’ way to big ole ship.
Who’s on board?
OK, I’m back. Like Ernest Borgnine wit the beard. So let’s clean it up. And make for the centre of that mean fckin’ river. There’s a real “hollow man” to deal with.
Anyone got a LIGHT?
N’
July 14th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Oh yea…time to liberate them schools. Damn straight Ken. Let’s kick some arse!
N’
July 14th, 2008 at 5:59 am
“Damn right Phill (good to see ya back matey…thought you’d gone AWOL)…lest some mudder fuckas stand up to ‘em.’
Good to be back,someone had to bring the conversation down in to the gutter, best be me, being an ignorant fuck an all..
How goes it? And what do you think of Rudd?
He’s probably on to our Telcos arranging the taps, as I tap away, this latest load of ullage. This undercover operation will possibly be called “night of the ignuana” or are they getting their lizards mixed up? maybe night of the goanna, in memory of one of the Liberal Party’s favorite sons.
But I know deep in my heart a god fearing man like the Ruddster would do no such thing.
Although there are rumors getting around he swears,heavens to betsy,our Kevvie swearing?I don’t believe it.
Time to shove off ol bean.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Rudd’s a confusin’ one for sure. But the oscillating political colour bit might be handy in the present environment…there are few out there who haven’t had their personality altered & shaped by the cross carriers, war-fertilisers and telemanglists. More Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads than Peruvians could point a stick at.
It was always gonna be a trippy year. Ending up w/ Obama (hopefully) in 09 detecting & removing the Bushevik mines before too many get hurt.
It’s the people who can hurt the Telcos. If they don’t hit them as consumers, is it any wonder the pollies are affeared.
Imagine if Hillary as VP missed that call in the early morn that said:
“Maam, as President Obama is presently on Air Force One & the Russkies have jammed our communications to him, you might want to know that retiree Cheney has just called retiree Bush to let him know ‘Our Iranian mate has left a calling card in the airport that will make Obama, OBANG!A…he, he, snort’…shall we take them down Maam?…”
I’m not worried about the listenin’, I took that for granted, for me it’s more about which f*cker is listenin’…;)
BTW, not too happy about SOME of them rovin’ satellites…I like to take a crap in the bush w/ out some dude knowin’ whether I crackle or pop.
Now I knows why ya drink.