THE BALANCE between respecting individual rights and restricting them for the sake of security is a dangerous tightrope that every government must walk. The problem has become particularly acute since Sept. 11 and the advent of the global war on terror. Unfortunately, the decisions are not well-reasoned tradeoffs decided among elder statesmen; they have descended into the realm of purely partisan conflict. In late 2005, The New York Times reported that President Bush had bypassed the courts and authorized wiretaps without warrants. Bush confirmed this and, more recently, Sen. Russ Feingold has threatened to censure the president over the constitutionality of this issue. In the meantime, the Justice Department has been pressing newly-public Google to release search data and web addresses related to pornography. Yet this time, Bush's chorus of critics has largely been silent.
It seems Democrats do not actually put any more stock in civil liberties than the Justice Department does -- all they are really concerned with is elections, even at the expense of rights and security. Privacy issues have become little more than partisan politics with both sides equivocating on what they actually believe.
For over a year now, President Bush has authorized the wiretapping of domestic communications directed outside the United States by suspected terrorists. Bush and many of his fellow Republicans have defended the wiretaps as essential to national security, citing the examples of Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two Sept. 11 hijackers who communicated with al Qaeda members outside the U.S. Democrats counter that the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Service Act set up the FISA court specifically to grant warrants for domestic surveillance and, therefore, Bush's actions are unconstitutional. All this is nothing but partisan bickering that misses the underlying issue, evidenced by the disparate responses to wiretaps and web-user privacy.
The evidence needed to prove that a phone call ought to be wiretapped is necessarily classified. Therefore, the FISA Court is conducted purely in secret. Furthermore, from 1979 to 2002 the court granted a warrant every single time is was asked for one. In 2004 alone, the court granted 1,754 applications, rejecting none.
The court is really nothing more than a bureaucratic impediment to the protection of national security. It can provide no transparency or oversight and is simply a validation of an action that would have been taken anyway. Bush's detractors claim that since the FISA court can grant warrants retroactively for emergencies (for up to 72 hours), he still should have obtained a warrant. The problem with this is twofold. First, it forces the federal government to file bureaucratic paperwork instead of focusing on dealing with the information obtained. Second, constantly invoking the retroactive rule dilutes the notion of an emergency. A retroactive approval stamp means nothing, especially when it can be a hindrance to the executive branch's primary function -- protecting domestic security.
Democrats (and even a few Republicans) have jumped on the bandwagon to show their disdain for this new policy, claiming they are the true protectors of civil liberties and American democracy. Feingold has even gone so far as to call Bush a criminal worthy of being censured. Feingold is widely considered to be eyeing the presidency in 2008 and is quickly becoming the far-left and grassroots activists' favorite candidate. Thus, he has an incentive to do anything to make Bush look bad. Feingold looks a lot more like he is catering to his base than actually protecting democracy. If Feingold truly intended to present himself as a guardian of civil liberties, he would not remain silent about the Google case.
A few weeks ago, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez subpoenaed Google to turn over search data including tens of thousands of URLs and search terms. The justification was to test the efficacy of the 1998 Child Online Protection Act whose implementation has been blocked by the Supreme Court. Federal Judge James Ware ruled that, although the government will not get as much data from Google as it wants, it will have to hand over 50,000 Web addresses and 5,000 search terms stating that "the expectation of privacy by some Google users may not be reasonable."
Where are the great defenders of civil liberties who so gleefully lambasted President Bush over the wiretaps? It is the job of parents to decide whether or not their kids should be able to see pornography over the internet. Furthermore, Google is so widely used because of its unique software and innovative algorithms to which the government is indirectly being given access. This is a clear-cut case of the government running over the privacy of Google shareholders, Google users and parents with no national security justifications whatsoever. Given that the Web is largely uncharted legislative waters, this seems a perfect opportunity for Democrats to show their mettle and provide privacy protections for internet users. The problem is that the Google issue does not have election implications so members of both parties just sit on the sidelines.
Josh Levy is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.
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