This May Not Apply To You

[billroper]

If this doesn't apply to you, then it doesn't. If it does, it does.

There are a number of people around who are loudly complaining that President Bush did not do enough in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and that he should have done whatever it took to bring the National Guard directly under Federal control no matter what the law said. I suspect that at least some of those people are the same ones who complain loudly about the Patriot Act and the potential that it has for abuse.

Why would the first be a good thing if the possibility that sort of abuse of Federal power could be used for evil purposes is such a bad thing?

ObDisclaimer: Yes, there were no doubt numerous actions that the Feds (and Bush) might have taken in the wake of Katrina that would have been good -- and legal! -- things to do and which they did not actually do. Yes, there are no doubt provisions of the Patriot Act that are subject to abuse.

ObDisclaimer Two: I said that if this didn't apply to you, it didn't apply to you. :)

Comments

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I haven't made that specific complaint, but if I had known about it I would have. I still see no conflict between the complaints. On the one hand we have Bush (conceivably) sitting on his hands when people needed help and hiding behind the law when they called him on it. On the other hand we have Bush making himself a law which would allow him to do things he wants to do that (I assume) a lot of the people he governs wouldn't want him to do.

If he's going to abuse the powers of the Patriot Act anyway (and I see no reason to assume that he wouldn't, given that I gather new laws have gone through that make large chunks of it permanent), he might as well have thrown the rulebook out on this as well and done what was necessary to help NOLA. I see no conflict in complaining about him doing one thing and not doing the other. If it got him into trouble afterwards, I'm sure the people of New Orleans would have spoken up for him.

When Captain Kirk says "Blast the regulations, Mister Spock!" it's usually so he can help someone in need or peril, not so he can extend his spy-camera network to the yeomans' quarters. If he justified one in terms of the other, or not doing the former in terms of not doing the latter, the worthy Vulcan wouldn't be the only one raising an eyebrow.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

And see this, possibly.

[billroper]

Interestingly, the article linked in the original makes no reference to posse comitatus. I also understand that the active duty military are participating in relief actions, but not attempting to exercise police powers, which would be a violation of posse comitatus.

Anything to show otherwise?

[madfilkentist]

If Bush were to violate every law on the books, then we'd have a dictatorship, plain and simple. There are still some limits on his power, and suggesting that he should just do whatever he feels like and steamroller the opposition is a really bad idea.

Or let me try it another way. The President can't just seize the power to use troops illegally one time. If people knuckle under and say he can do it, that fact doesn't just evaporate conveniently afterward. The President would now have the authority to use troops domestically any time he felt like it, not just when you want him to. You might feel you're far away enough not to worry about the consequences of that; I'm not, and I don't think you are either.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I love the way you take the discussion effortlessly into the realms of the personal...

So as soon as Bush had used these troops to help deal with this horrible national emergency, he would then immediately use them to annexe all fifty-odd state capitals, close down Congress and declare himself dictator. I must admit I hadn't realised he was that mad, but you've certainly opened my eyes on that. I also hadn't realised (though gods know I should have done) that there was no provision in your system to deal with a president who breaks the rules: once he's done it, the genie's out of the bottle, everything flies out of the window and it's every man for himself. I wonder if he knows that...

And to reply to your final jab in kind, I also hadn't realised that you are even more scared of George W Bush than I am. Or, presumably, anyone who occupies that office. The whole system is founded on fear and mistrust, isn't it?

[billroper]

I don't know of any reports that the Patriot Act has been abused (although I may have missed them when Congress was looking it over for reauthorization). There are things about the Patriot Act that I see as being good things -- for example, the ability for a judge to issue a wiretap that follows an individual from disposable wireless phone to disposable wireless phone, rather than having to get a new warrant for each phone to be tapped.

However, the fact that the Patriot Act could be abused has caused some folks to complain a lot. And I won't argue that the act shouldn't be amended appropriately to make it more difficult to abuse.

Of course, one man's "abuse" is another man's "vital national security interest", I suppose...