David McRaney  |  Journalist

The eternal price of freedom is vigilance

It will feel much like eight years ago when another president entering his sixth year in office had to perform some rhetorical gymnastics to slither out of his scandalous tryst with an intern.

Our current president, entering his sixth year in office, deliberately violated the Constitution and federal statues by conducting domestic spying without a warrant. The implications are serious, and he will attempt to convince you it was for your own good.

So, tonight will feel like a bad rerun, except there will be a difference. - no one cares.

There won't be months of media attention or years of lame stand-up surrounding the domestic spying scandal.

Violating the constitution and ignoring the oath of office seems at least equivalent to lying about oral sex. Committing the very crimes the founding fathers were afraid leaders may attempt is at least comparable to adultery, right?

Let me back up a second.

If your still holding the paper in your hands, you probably want to know what Bush did. Well, he admitted to ordering wiretaps without getting the court warrants required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. To justify his actions, he claimed he had the legal authority to do so, and his actions were required for the sake of national security in a time of war.

Perhaps this doesn't irk you. Most people don't seem too bothered by it. But, others, the kind of people who tend to think our country is holding on to what it was founded on by the skin of its teeth, would disagree.

You see, we love to talk about freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. The Constitution is as close to sacrosanct as anything non-religious text our culture has.

Bush claims the powers constitutionally given to the commander-in-chief permit him to do whatever he wants in wartime, regardless of the law or other branches of the government.

I think this runs counter to our whole system of government, yet apparently no one else is upset.

The weird thing is FISA created a court especially for the purpose of issuing the kind of warrants Bush got illegally. It has issued thousands of such warrants. He can even get the warrant first and ask questions later as long as he comes to the court for review within three days.

So, the question sitting out there for no one to care about is why did the president disobey the law when he didn't have to?

I figure it just goes along with his rich kid mentality of never having to get permission for anything. He just flails about up there and everyone covers for him.

Supporters are likely to hear about this, hear his explanation of illegal surveillance of private citizens as a strategy for protecting us from evildoers, and feel content they made the right decision because this is a president who just gets the job done.

I sympathize with you out there who can get behind something like this. I understand how scary it seems with all the fear mongering and the liberals trying to take away your values.

But seriously, I implore you to open your eyes. Why would he choose a clandestine method when he didn't have to?

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure because the founding fathers knew when kings don't need the approval of a judge to invade the privacy of the citizen, freedom is dead.

I'm inclined to believe Bush will do his song and dance tonight, and that will be the end of this. It's much more boring than oral sex, and infidelity, well marital infidelity, is absent from the drama.

No soap opera means no ratings. No ratings means no advertising. No advertising means no story. No story means no one will be vigilant.

Jefferson said the eternal price of freedom is vigilance, but I'm afraid we may be observationally bankrupt.

Originally published in The Student Printz on January 31, 2006