Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

W. and Fourth Amendment

04 January 2006 |permalink | email article

Consider this outrageous presidential statement to justify a questionable legal act: ìIf somebody from Al Qaeda is calling you, weíd like to know why.î Yes, George W. Bush is so obsessed with another Al Qaeda attack that heís authorized warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens ìto find out what the enemy is thinking.î

His first remarks of 2006, a vigorous defense of the NSA program as a matter of national security, were intended to deflect bipartisan congressional inquiries this month into his authorization of spying as ìnecessaryî to protect the U.S. in the war on terrorism.

The NSA is required to seek permission, on a case by case basis, from a special panel of federal judges before conducting any type of domestic surveillance. But the president insists that the congressional authorization to use force against Al Qaeda, passed after 9/11, allowed him to approve NSA intercepts without a court order.

Did Bush overstep his constitutional authority and violate a law intended to prevent the government from spying on its citizens without court approval? That question took on alarming new meaning New Yearís Day.

The New York Times reported that a top Justice Department official, James B. Comey, in March 2004 objected to aspects of the NSAís domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight. Comey was acting attorney general during Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft’s hospitalization hospitalization for gallbladder surgery.

Two of Bushís top aides, chief of staff Andrew Card Jr. and then-White Counsel Alberto Gonzales, made an emergency visit to Ashcroft ìbecause they needed him for certification.î The Times wrote it is unclear ìwhether the White House ultimately persuaded Ashcroft to give his approval to the program after the meeting or moved ahead without it. Comey could not be reached for comment.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has asked Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), just as concerned, to request testimony from Card Jr., Gonzales and Ashcroft. The nation is approaching another Nixonesque moment. Bush ought to read the Fourth Amendment again, and very carefully.

Arnold: A Second Close-Up

03 January 2006 |permalink | email article

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers the customary State of the State address this Thursday. After the disastrous failure of his ìyear of reformî ballot crusade, can the one-time bodybuilder overcome his demonized image with a political makeover?

Respected California historian Kevin Starr thinks the governor can recoup. In the Sunday Los Angeles Timesí ëCurrentí he admits a minor role as historical consultant in the address where the governor will outline a bold program of infrastructure construction and innovation, principally financed by a $25-billion-to $27-billion bond issue.

The USC professor sees the reconciliation of Schwarzenneger and former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis as a good bipartisan omen. The dream of a bold new public vision that former Gov. Earl Warren first outlined in 1944, sustained by him and continued by governors Goodwin Knight and Pat Brown into the 1960s is for Starr the key to Schwarzeneggerís comeback.

Less sanguine about a rebound is veteran Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters who thinks the new year raises more questions than answers about Schwarzeneggerís ìseesaw governorship.î

He wonders whether the governor can re-energize his disaffected Republican base, cool to his ballot measure crusade and livid about the appointment of longtime liberal Democratic activist Susan Kennedy (a former Davis operative) as his savvy chief of staff.

Walters questions whether there is any way, short of a tax increase, to balance the deficit-plagued state budget and whether Democrats, interested in a big infrastructure package, would leverage a much weakened governor by demanding that he sign Democratic bills heís rejected in the past.

Democrat Maria Shriver - who abstained from her husbandís doomed campaign, which pandered to business and the hard right, and alienated nurses, teachers, and law enforcement ñ upstaged her party by recruiting the turncoat Kennedy. 

Glimpses of a ìnew Arnoldî are emerging. Nominating state appeals justice Carol Corrigan, a moderate, to succeed ultra-conservative Janice Rogers Brown on the California Supreme Court has won praise. On Thursday heíll propose raising the stateís minimum wage by $1 after vetoing a similar measure two years in a row.

With an unfavorable approval rating below 40%, the repackaged Republicrat needs more than a vision to repair his image. A Democratic gubernatorial primary donnybrook in June between the liberal multimillionaires, Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly, might help.

New Year 2006

02 January 2006 |permalink | email article

Political pundits make their predictions; people of good faith agree or disagree; the search for justice, peace and happiness remains unrequited. Consider the value of mindfulness in a turbulent world:

And now let us believe in the long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been.

óThe poet Rainer Maria Rilke

To return to the present is to be in contact with life. Life can be found only in the present moment, because ëthe past no longer isí and ëthe future has not yet come.í

óThe Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh

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