Democrats for the Surveillance State

Hoping to score points with a public increasingly wary of the Bush administration’s record on the rule of law, Democratic lawmakers have advertised themselves as defenders of constitutional protections of legal due process. But it’s clear from the recent passage of H.R. 6304 that the House Democrats are a house divided. That bipartisan bill—which essentially legalizes the White House’s warrantless surveillance program—passed 293 to 128, with 105 Democrats voting for it, including House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. In a new op-ed, Independent Institute Research Analyst Anthony Gregory calls the bill’s passage “just the latest example in 30 years of Democratic betrayals of the Fourth Amendment.”

The bill, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (which Jimmy Carter signed into law three decades ago), would expand the feds’ eavesdropping powers and indemnify telecom companies that shared phone data with the National Security Agency. The Washington Post says the bill “restores the legal notion that the FISA law is the exclusive rule on government spying.” That’s little comfort to civil libertarians: before 9/11, Gregory notes, the FISA court rejected not one single application for a surveillance warrant—out of more than 13,000 applications.

“FISA created too many loopholes in the Fourth Amendment,” writes Gregory. “The litany of unspeakable surveillance abuses under this and past administrations (both Republican and Democratic) and the executive’s tendency to defy even the flimsiest safeguards suggest that Americans serious about civil liberties should hold their representatives to a higher standard and bolder agenda: repeal this last monstrosity, scrap the Patriot Act, and give FISA itself the axe.”

“The Democrats Betray the Fourth Amendment,” by Anthony Gregory (6/24/08)

“Watching You: Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans,” by Charlotte Twight (The Independent Review, Fall 1999)