SIX MONTHS after 9/11, we experience an eerie sense of normalcy. The
Oscars generate their usual hype; friends once again discuss divorce. People
return to airplanes; fans eagerly await a new baseball season.
Yet, nothing is normal. Beneath the routine sounds and sights of daily life
lurks the stark, unsettling fact that our society is not as democratic as it
was last summer.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks created a legitimate need for heightened
security, intensified surveillance and enhanced intelligence. Like other
Americans, I fully support the Bush administration's effort to protect us from
further terrorist attacks. But nothing -- absolutely nothing -- justifies the
secrecy that has shrouded the Bush presidency, its gratuitous violation of
civil liberties, or its corrosive constraints on our most cherished democratic
practices.
Consider what has happened during these past six months. President Bush has
repeatedly invoked executive privilege and refused congressional requests for
information. He created a shadow government without informing congressional
leaders. He overturned the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and gave himself
the right to seal past presidential papers since 1980. He deposited his own
gubernatorial papers in his father's presidential library where they are
inaccessible to the public.
On the defense front, the Bush administration appointed John M. Poindexter -
- who, along with Ollie North, masterminded the Iran-Contra arms- for-hostages
scam -- to head the Pentagon's new Office of Information Awareness. The
president has extended the war on terrorism to Yemen, Georgia and the
Philippines without a declaration of war or congressional approval. He even
declared a new unilateralist Bush Doctrine: The United States reserves the
right to enter any nation to pursue terrorists or destroy weapons of mass
destruction, whether or not it is invited by a head of state and without
seeking approval from the U.N. Security Council.
Members of Congress are finally resisting this assault on the system of
checks and balances that our nation's founders created to protect our
democratic government. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, is suing Vice President Dick Cheney for refusing to hand over
records from secretly held energy meetings. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has
asked the GAO to investigate the impact of Attorney General John Ashcroft's
Oct. 12 memo to all federal agencies, in which he urged them to resist Freedom
of Information Act requests.
But Congress must do more to restore its check on an increasingly imperious
presidency. The Bush administration is using the threat of terrorism to
curtail civil liberties, bully legislators, scatter troops across the world
and intimidate Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria with
the threat of pre-emptive tactical nuclear strikes.
George. W. Bush should remember that he lost the popular vote and never
received a mandate from the American people for these policies. His current
approval ratings, according to many political analysts, rest more on fear than
on a national consensus.
He should tread carefully. Americans recognize that patriotism is not only
the willingness to fight fascism or terrorism, but also the passion to protect
our democratic freedoms right here, at home.
Ruth Rosen is a Chronicle editorial writer.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
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