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EPIC Article On Clinton Domestic Spying Proposal
Spying Editorial Debate on Warrantless Searches |
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As a response to the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, then-President Clinton proposed legislation that would allow, among other things, the Federal Government to spy on organizations that the Attorney General had declared dangerous. In essence, he would have legalized the type of (illegal) domestic spying that Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon (the latter was threatened with impeachment for domestic spying, among other crimes) had engaged in. Here is one article about the issue, from EPIC. The Republican-controlled Congress killed the legislation, but mainly due to other reasons. The Congress, and the news media, virtually ignored the domestic spying aspects of the legislation.
A little before the domestic spying fiasco, President Clinton had issued an executive order, allowing warrantless searches of public housing. (The US Supreme Court later declared his actions unconstitutional.) Here is one editorial on that issue. The writer of this has much the same opinion of Bill Clinton as I do. There is also a debate on warrantless searches. The first debater supports the searches, the second opposes them. In these debates, the person who supports warrantless searches usually mentions "martial law" is needed in the "housing projects" and "bringing an end to the violence" requires "extreme measures." One implicit assumption is, of course, that only low-income, Black and Hispanic neighborhoods need to be subjected to these measures. Can you imagine white, middle-class people tolerating warrantless searches in their neighborhoods? Another assumption is that these measures will actually work. Given the fact that most of these violence-prone neighborhoods are also hotbeds of drug dealing, that thirty years of the "War on Drugs" has been a colossal failure, and that such failures are used only to justify ever-harsher anti-drug measures (and violations of civil liberties, such as warrantless searches), I'm not optimistic. It's likely, instead, that (a) these measures will fail; (b) when they fail, their supporters will call for even harsher measures, and more violations of civil liberties; (c) anyone who objects will be accused of "not being a realist" or "coddling criminals." And politicians, liberal or conservative, are usually only too happy to go along. Many of these issues are "no-lose" for them. If they advocate warrantless searches, and some organization such as the ACLU kills the legislation, the politicians cry "these left-wing nuts don't care about public safety" and win. If the searches stand, the politicos cry "we've made a much-needed breakthrough in making our streets safe" and win again. Nobody even asks whether crime has been reduced. And if, by some miracle, crime is reduced significantly, no one asks whether there were any other measures -- mandatory sentences for violent criminals, crackdowns on gangs, a reduction in inner-city poverty, more police, an emphasis on arresting violent criminals rather than nonviolent drug offenders -- that might have also made a difference. When was the last time that a politician who advocated a law -- regardless of whether the law related to poverty, violence, national defense, education -- if the law failed to obtain the desired result, said "I goofed. It doesn't work. Let's try something else?" Almost never. Instead, it's "We need to go further. We need to do more." And they push for more of the same. Albert Einstein defined insanity as "going in the same direction and expecting to reach a different destination." Of course, cynics might say that politics is not about solving problems -- it's about fixing blame, pointing fingers, and doing whatever you can to get votes. Anyone concerned with the state of freedom in America should consider this last point. Early in the 1970's, President Nixon was forced to resign because of his actions -- domestic spying, enemies lists, Watergate, a secret war in Cambodia. By the late 1990's, another President had tried to legalize domestic spying, had tried to order warrantless searches, had fabricated a child abuse excuse for an unwarranted raid on Waco, and had involved this country in pointless wars in Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosovo. When that President was finally impeached, none of this was ever mentioned. Even his political opponents did not care to make an issue of his civil liberties positions. As I put this page together, it was very enlightening to try to find internet articles about Clinton's domestic spying proposals. Most of them were in either far-right or far-left sources. I guess the political "mainstream" doesn't care about civil liberties anymore. |
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