We are now almost a month into 2008, but I can't shake the feeling that we're stuck in 1984. Big Brother is watching us, listening to us and invading our personal privacy at an unprecedented and alarming rate-all in the name of national security.
In the years that have followed the somber and terrible events of Sept.11, our government has taken every opportunity to enhance its surveillance capabilities at the expense of our civil liberties, eroding with ease the privacy protections enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. President Bush and his Republican cronies in Congress-undeterred by a spineless Democratic party-have masterfully manipulated the facts, played on our patriotism and turned our fears against us in order to legitimize their policies.
One needs to look no further than last week to witness the unmitigated gall of the administration in its attempts to abolish formerly inviolable constitutional protections.
Last week, the president once again urged Congress to sacrifice our civil liberties on the altar of national security-this time by extending and revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire next month.
FISA was originally passed in 1978 in order to draw the legal parameters for the domestic surveillance of communications between foreign agents and individuals within the U.S. It was reported some months ago that the Bush administration ignored the law in its domestic intelligence gathering activities.
In response to this arrogant abuse of power, Congress stood its ground, investigated, held hearings, and ultimately impeached the President and several high-ranking administration officials for their blatant contempt for the law.
No wait, that was an imaginary Congress-one whose members have principles and convictions, who stand up for what they claim to believe and disregard entirely the politics of fear.
That's not our real Congress.
No, our Congress was more concerned with the electoral consequences of appearing weak on defense rather than with the slow, silent death of our civil liberties. Instead of standing up for us, Congress buckled under pressure and passed an updated FISA, noticeably devoid of the judicial oversight of its predecessor. Now Bush can spy on whomever he pleases without the inconvenience of that irritating thing called the Bill of Rights.
It gets better.
Bush also informed us that it's no longer enough to rollback civil liberties, but we must also provide corporate amnesty if we're going to beat the terrorists. Included among the revisions the Republicans are pushing is a provision that grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies for their compliance with the administration's demands for customer phone records.
If the bill passes-and given the Democrats' record, we shouldn't be surprised if it does-it would be yet another indication of the times we live in. That is, treacherous times for truth, reason and the constitutional framework our republic was founded on.
We have seen this move before, and I am tired of it: Bush demands a reduction in our freedoms in order to safeguard our freedoms, and our capitulating Congress rubber-stamps it.
Telecom amnesty is not the answer to combating terrorism, and neither is the liquidation of our privacy rights.
Joshua Fredrickson is a political science senior. His column appears on Wednesdays.
