Congress, Judiciary Hand White House Christmas Defeat

The Bush administration is heralding the past year as a good one from their perspective on legislation. It’s hard to see it that way, unless one counts the pork-laden transportation bill, making it harder to file bankruptcy and getting Chief Justice Roberts confirmed. A better measure is the insistence in Congress on extending the Patriot Act for only one month (Mr. Bush said he wouldn’t accept a mere extension – now, he’s glad to get it). Add to that the survival of the ban on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and Congress hasn’t done his bidding this week. The judiciary piled on with Judge James Robertson resigning from the FISA court to protest Mr. Bush’s use of the NSA to spy on US citizens without warrants, and with Judge Michael Luttig refusing to transfer alleged terrorist Jose Padilla from military to civilian custody, setting up a Supreme Court test. And has anyone seen Social Security privatization?

The Patriot Act was passed right after the Al Qaeda murders in September 2001 without a single member of congress actually reading it. Democracies get hysterical, but four years on, everyone has calmed down. In doing so, they have discovered an act that lets the government search homes without telling people their property has been searched and lets the FBI requisition library and book store records. The president wanted to make the whole thing permanent. The congress has given it a one-month lease on life, and if the tea leaves read correctly, hearings into its effectiveness should turn up in Jnauary. The White House says it needs all the tools it can get to fight terrorism. The Republic needs to make sure those tools are used only in the fight against Fascislam, not citizens who disagree with the administration.

In their hearts, President Bush and Vice President Cheney are oil men, and the Vice President successfully so. Nothing gets them going quite like the rush of petroleum. So, they’ve had drilling in Alaska in their minds long before they took over the executive branch. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been trying to get permission for oil companies to drill in the ANWR for a quarter of a century, but the three of them couldn’t twist enough arms to keep an amendment permitting it in the defense appropriations bill. Also, the defense bill carries the “Americans Can’t Torture Prisoners” demands of Senator McCain that the White House, and especially Mr. Cheney, resisted with such venom.

As for Judge Robertson’s resignation from the court that hands out warrants to allow the NSA to spy domestically, nothing makes the Bush White House look more amateurish than someone taking a principled stand against it. His Honor said the president’s order (renewed over 30 times) to let the NSA spy without warrants “may have tainted the FISA’s court’s work.” Meaning, there could be legal ramifications that undermine the government’s efforts to fight crime, terrorism and related nastiness.

Finally, the White House has held Jose Padilla without charge or trial saying he was an “enemy combatant,” and then, after three years, decided to put him under civilian control by indicting him, rendering moot the case in front of Judge Luttig. Judge Luttig decided he would deny the change of custody and force the case onward. This means that the Supreme Court will likely review the case, and what will happen if the Roberts Court tells the president that he’s been violating the man’s rights for three years, complain about liberal judicial activism?

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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