You're Joking, Right?

On Tuesday, July 29, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback issued the following public statement regarding the Beijing Olympics:

The Chinese government has put in place a system to spy on and gather information about every guest at hotels where Olympic visitors are staying. This means journalists, athletes' families and other visitors will be subjected to invasive intelligence gathering by the Chinese Public Security Bureau.

On CNN the next day, the earnest senator elaborated his concerns:

Your internet communications can all be monitored in a real time basis by the public security bureau of the Chinese government. I think they’re clearly intent upon spying. They’re going to be spying.

Really. This is the same Republican Senator who voted for the FISA law last month, effectively giving the President unrestricted authority for warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

Without a trace of irony intended, I would like know what Brownback is accusing the Chinese government of doing that the U.S. government is not doing to its own citizens this very moment. FISA allows the U.S. government to monitor all communications going in and out of the United States and to listen in on them without a warrant. Since "journalists, athletes' families, and other visitors" will also be sending emails, faxes, and making phone calls from China back to home, what the Chinese are doing, by our own standards, is perfectly legal and moral.

Brownback has responded to the question. He maintains that what the U.S. does and what China will do are different.

We don't put the hardware and software on hotels. If there is a targeted individual that seems to be a likely prospect of terrorists, they must go through the FISA court and ask for a court to determine that there is probable cause to be able to listen in on that information.

What a joke. If the President used FISA warrants, I would have no problem with with the FISA law. The problem with FISA is that it excuses the president from obtaining a warrant in the case on international calls -- a huge loophole that can be, and doubtlessly is, widely abused.

Besides, what is the use in arguing fine points of the law with the Chinese? We authorize warrantless wiretapping and so do they. Does anyone with a brain think China, or any other government in the world, really cares how Sam Brownback and the Republicans interpret U.S. law? I know I don't, and I'm an American.

FISA, after all, is intended to combat terrorism. The Olympics would certainly qualify as an attractive terrorist target. China not only can, but should suspend civil rights during a time of terrorist threats, if we are to believe the Wall Street Journal, who said this on July 25, 2008 in its infamous "Batman" editorial:

[George W. Bush] sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

We have been through this ad nausem concerning U.S. torture policy. When you maintain that your own situation excuses you from accepted ethics, you should not be surprised when an enemy makes the same argument.

Guiding China to a more democratic government is one of the most important diplomatic missions of our time. FISA, and the thinking that goes with it, takes the moral high ground away from the U.S. in this quest. If we use FISA to nab a few terrorists, but at the same time miss a golden opportunity to goad China in the right direction, we are aiming to win a few battles at the expense of losing a very important war.

When Ronald Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," he could say that because the United States did not have an analogous wall. With FISA on the books, what can we realistically say to the Chinese?

Amnesty for Criminals

Just last week we had to listen to conservatives whine because the Supreme Court overturned a law denying U.S. military prisoners in Guantanamo Bay the right to habeas corpus.  How dare they, people like John McCain intoned, give legal rights to war prisoners. They're guilty, they don't need rights! They need to be punished for the crimes we can't prove they committed!

Lest we think that politicians are only interested in taking rights away from guilty people, Congress is this very day moving to take rights away from the innocent. Since 2006, George Bush has been pressing Congress to pass a law that not only allows the President to tap any phone call in the United States without a warrant as long as he says he is doing it to prevent terrorism, but also grants immunity to any telephone company that did an illegal wiretap in the past. 

That's right. Any phone call you make any time can be tapped. Without a warrant. And there is nothing you can do about it. You can't even sue the government to find out the reason you were tapped. You have no rights. All your phone calls are free for the government to pluck, whenever they feel like it, and you can't do a damn thing about it.

I've written about this before. Earlier in the year, members of Congress tried to push a similar bill through, but were blocked by a filibuster. So they are trying again. What Congress and the President want to do is to make it illegal to sue a telephone company for a warrantless wiretap. Why is this a big deal? Because there are 40 or so lawsuits against telecom companies for illegal taps in the courts right now. If this law passes, all the lawsuits will be dismissed. These lawsuits are the only chance the public has of ever finding out what the White House was tapping and why. We don't know if the Bush administration was really hunting terrorists or if they were collecting information to blackmail people and win elections, or even to find out illegal stock tips they could use to steal money in the stock market. We simply don't know.

The government certainly has to do some things in secret. But secrecy should be a last resort, not the norm. If this law passes, secrecy becomes the norm. No citizen, now or ever, will be able to challenge the validity of a federal wiretap. 

This is amnesty for criminals. The criminals are the telecom companies who tapped calls without a warrant, and the government officials who told them to do it. These criminals get off scot-free, and the law that got them off the hook could go down the same week conservatives howl because detainees now have the right to a court hearing in which the evidence against them is presented. I am both furious, and afraid, of the people in charge of this country.

One of the most outrageous parts about this bill is that it was drafted up with the approval of Democratic leadership. President Bush is 9 months from leaving office, his approval ratings are below 25%. He is weak as a kitten. Why won't the Democrats stand up to him? The only answer I can come up with is that some of the people in the Democratic leadership are hiding something that will come out if the telecom lawsuits come out. Perhaps they took money. Perhaps they used the wiretapping for their own advantage. Whatever it is, it appears both the White House and the Democratic leaders have done something terribly wrong and they are pulling every stop to legally cover themselves. If we citizens do nothing about it, they will get away with their criminal behavior. 

It is said we are at war. War is no excuse for taking rights away from citizens. Throughout its history America has mostly fought wars for rights -- what a sad end we are coming to if we consider war a good reason to flush rights down the toilet. 

Update on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 10:02AM by Michael Hebert

I sent the following email to Chip Pickering, my Congressional Representative in Mississippi's 3rd district:

Mr. Pickering: It is my understanding that Congress may be considering a bill today that grants telecom companies amnesty for illegal wiretaps. I am urging you to oppose this bill.

I realize you are a Republican and tend to support Presidential initiatives. But this bill allows the President sweeping powers to snoop on private citizens. I am appalled that the Republican party, a party that has long supported small government, is fully behind efforts to put the FBI in the homes of every American. This is unconscionable.

I have written you a few times on this topic, and have NEVER received even a polite response, which I consider to be bad form on your part. You could at least acknowledge me.

But no matter. I intend to send letters to the editor to all local newspapers, and to do what I can to raise awareness of this issue. I am a citizen of a proud Southern state. I don't take being deprived of my rights lying down, and neither will the citizens of Mississippi.

Michael C. Hebert, MD

Election Day Postcard from Mississippi

Election night is over here, and Barack Obama has carried our state with 60% of the vote. Unfortunately, from the looks of things, his victory is a mixed picture. According to MSNBC  reporting, blacks came out by the thousands and voted almost unanimously for Obama, while whites voted roughly 3 to 1 for Hillary Clinton.

On the surface, this looks like an historic day. A black presidential candidate carries the state of Missisippi, and by a sizable margin. This has never happened before, and until about 6 months ago, it was inconceivable that it would this year. And yet, despite the historical milestone, deep down it was the same old story -- deep racial divisions, each voting for his own. There were only a few crossovers, and I was among them.  For the most part, though, we had the usual, disguised as something new. Only because blacks voted with unprecedented unity  did Obama carry the day.

My experience of life in the South is that this is how it goes. On the surface we get a string of firsts: first mixed school, first black valedictorian, first black police officer, first black mayor, first black presidential primary winner. Behind it all we see that most people behave as they always have; they have simply learned to do so with greater subtlety and discretion. What once was "the school for coloreds only," now passes as "the school for the poor kids."

In my examination room over the years, I have heard the most horrible racial epithets. It is remarkable what a white patient will tell a white doctor in the privacy of the exam room. I wish I could charge extra for having to listen to the n-word; I'd have made a tidy sum over the years. That being said, I have only rarely excluded a patient from my practice because they express racism. This is not a thing to be proud of, but on the other hand, racists have a right to decent medical care, too.

Not so very long ago, a patient was talking to me in my office, and mentioned in passing that my children probably attend a certain local school that is 100% white. (I have no proof this ratio is by design, but in a county that is roughly 51% black, it is highly suspicious.) When I told him I did not send my children to that school, there was a silence, much longer than seemed comfortable. He was genuinely surprised, and seemed to be puzzling something out.

It put me in mind of a story told about one of Mississippi's most famous sons, Elvis Presley. The story goes that on the night one of Elvis's records was first played at a Memphis radio station, someone called in to ask what high school Elvis went to. The question was an aphorism for asking what color his skin was, because Memphis high schools were universally segregated and everyone knew which schools were what color. I felt the same way about my patient's reaction to my choice of schools for my kids -- he was drawing a conclusion.

This is the South I know -- physically  in the twenty-first century,  and yet oddly, often unreasoningly, pointed towards the past. So why live here? Stubborn, I guess. If all the open-minded people left Mississippi to be with like-minded individuals elsewhere, what would happen to the South? The least I can be is a buffer in this volatile solution. I live here because I have seen changes on the surface, and hope that over time these changes will deepen. I would rather be a part of gradual, excruciating change, than puzzle over it from the comfort of distance.

Last night, for instance, black Mississippians swung behind a candidate like never before. This could be a good thing. Before other people believe in you, you have to believe in yourself. Maybe, perhaps, black Mississippians are finally believing in one of their own in an arena outside of sports or music. Maybe confidence in the black community that change can happen without violence and upheaval will persuade whites that change could be good for them, too.

Maybe. The Mississippi primary also shows we have a long way to go.

Why I Am Not a Republican

Southwest Mississippi has a heady political year coming up. Here in Mississippi's 3rd Congressional district, our Congressional Representative, Chip Pickering, has announced he is not running for re-election. Trent Lott, the state's long-serving senior Senator, retired in December. This means that in November, in our neck of the woods we will elect a brand-new U.S. Congressman, Senator, and President all in one day. An uncommon event.

The local newspaper has been running profiles of the candidates for the 3rd Congressional seat. Yesterday, the confection was Gregg Harper, Republican candidate and resident of Rankin County. He seems like a typical Republican, affable enough, pro-life, in favor of the Iraqi War. In fact, he seems to think the only problem with the Iraqi War is that the government is not selling it well enough:

“The Republican Party has done a lousy job explaining why we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, adding that officials need to better explain the country’s role in fighting Islamic terrorists “who want to destroy everything we believe in."

Interestingly enough, he is anti-stem cell research, but with a twist. His son has Fragile X syndrome, exactly the kind of disease stem cell proponents (erroneously) believe stem cell research can cure in short order. So in a sense, he is willing to practice what he preaches.

None of this is as troubling as this passage:

The main issue in the district, Harper said, is immigration.

“We need secure borders; it’s an issue of national security,” he said. “We need to enforce our existing (immigration) laws. I’m opposed to amnesty. I don’t think taxpayer benefits should go to illegals.”

This is exactly the claptrap that alienates me from the Republican party. I will save you a trip to the U.S. Census website and tell you a little about the 3rd Congressional district. Pike County, where I live, has a population of about 38,000, 51% white, 48% black, 0.7% Hispanic. Rankin County, where Mr. Harper lives, has a population of about 130,000, 81% white, 17% black, and 1.3% Hispanic. Unless Mr. Harper has detected a huge number of African or white-European illegal immigrants, there is no serious immigration problem around here.

This is the problem that I have with the immigration issue: It is a problem of the rich. Poor counties like Pike (per capita income $14,000) don't attract illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants go where the money is, to relatively wealthy states like California, Arizona, Texas, and New York. They tend to flock to big cities like Chicago, Denver, and Atlanta, bypassing rural areas like Mississippi. Yes, migrant workers do go to farms, but usually corporate farms, and corporate farming is not a big player in the Magnolia State.

We don't have an immigration problem here. Yet Mr. Harper calls this the number one issue in his own district at a time when we are at war, when the majority of Mississippians couldn't find Iraq on a map, when half a million Mississippians have no health insurance, when our per capita income is one-half the national average.

The best measure of a person's decency is his priorities. Ask someone what his first priority is, and his answer gives you pretty good insight into his character. Right now, President Bush's first priority seems to be securing legal amnesty for the telecom companies for privacy law violations. For the new Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal (also a Republican), it is comprehensive ethics reform for politicians. The depth of the chasm between the two priorities is arresting.

So here we have Harper, with all the things he ought to be worrying about, like education and crime and excesses of executive privilege and the mortgage crisis, and what's on his mind? The immigration status of Hispanics, who make up about one in one hundred Mississippians. Good God.

Of course Harper is just mouthing the tripe of his national party. The G.O.P. has no answers to America's real problems, so it makes up fake ones instead. Make no mistake, I think immigration laws should be enforced, but what threat do illegal immigrants really pose to our society? They take jobs no one else wants. They work for white people for half of nothing, and while their bosses charge the market rate for their services, the workers themselves are often are stiffed on their paychecks anyway. They get no insurance, no legal protections, no schooling, and as little health care as possible, and in return do a lot of our most unpleasant labor so uneducated Americans can work in air-conditioned malls. There is no strong evidence that they commit more crime than anyone else. Yes, they take jobs away from Americans. Now go find the nearest illegal immigrant, kick him across the border, and take over his job for 4 hours. I dare you. In 4 hours you will be out looking for him, begging him to take his old gig back.

People as clueless as Harper should be shoveling horse stalls for a living. I think I would trust the priorities of a Mexican who risked his life walking across hundreds of miles of desert so he could nail shingles for a living and send half his pay back to his family south of the border, over someone like him.

That is why I am not a Republican.

The New FISA Law

''At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison.''

This is how Our Dear Leader President Bush asks for legislation these days. He tells us that Congress must bow to his will or we all will die.

In this public statement, Bush was urging Congress to pass his version of the new FISA law, a federal statute that regulates how, among other things, U.S. intelligence is allowed to eavesdrop on phone calls. Both houses of Congress have more or less agreed to his proposal, with one exception. Bush wants the law to include a clause granting retrograde immunity to telecom companies that illegally supplied he government with phone records over the last six years. The Senate has agreed to this provision, but the House is balking. Bush has threatened to veto any bill that does not include retrograde immunity.

I do not pretend to be an expert on all aspects of this law, but here is the issue as I understand it. Since the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly asked telephone companies for their phone records during its anti-terrorist investigations. The telephone companies have been freely supplying this information, and allowing the Bush people to listen in on phone calls without search warrants. Under normal circumstances, telecom companies cannot supply such information, even if they want to, without a warrant. Telephone conversations are private in the U.S. Phone companies can't simply give this information away.

Why have the phone companies have been so complaint? They cannot be ignorant of the law. These are huge multinational companies with armies of lawyers. It could be that they are patriotic citizens, and simply felt the need to aid the cause of anti-terrorism. Or, more likely, they complied because they were currying favor with the president, expecting him to return the favor with a tax cut or regulation change in the future. This, to think about it, is a terrible thought: Telecom companies may be trading citizens' privacy for political favors.

At any rate, when the truth about these warrantless searches surfaced, about 20 groups filed lawsuits against the carriers for violation of privacy. This prompted the Bush administration to add the clause to the FISA bill in Congress to protect the companies from lawsuits.

This immunity provision is a terrible law. It cancels the legal standing of the lawsuits. Ordinarily, I am not big on class action suits, but in this case I am on the side of the plaintiffs. The telecom companies broke the law by handing over phone records without demanding warrants. If the new FISA bill goes through, the lawsuits will be dismissed. If the suits do not go forward, there will be no legal discovery, no subpoenas, no examination of who turned over what records and when. The public will never find out which phone records were handed over, and which phone calls were wiretapped. Bush maintains that only people suspected of terrorism were tapped, but given his history I am not inclined to believe him. I want to know what the President was doing. I am willing to bet that the wiretaps were far more widespread, and more dubious, than he is letting on.

I understand that counter-terrorism is an important government function. But counter-terrorism is not a blank check. A president is still accountable for his actions. If this bill goes through, I have no doubt these warrantless wiretaps will never be investigated and we will never know how far the Bush administration has snooped into the private lives of its citizens.

If he did nothing wrong, what is he afraid of?

Congress should not pass this bill as it is.