In a speech ignored by cable news networks today, Al Gore sounds the alarm
about our constitution being in crisis and the dangers our nation faces by an
executive branch that is out of control and power hungry. Excerpts follow:
[..]
During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President
went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one
occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government
spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional
safeguards were still in place.But surprisingly, the President’s soothing statements turned out to be
false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was
uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was
true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale
invasions of privacy to an end.[..]
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our
government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a
government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure
of government they had enshrined in our Constitution – our system of checks
and balances – was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would
govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: “The executive shall
never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to
the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.”[..]
Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness
grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it
becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the
executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to
control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes
increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that
ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government
of men and not laws[..]
When President Bush failed to convince Congress to give him all the power
he wanted when they passed the AUMF, he secretly assumed that power anyway,
as if congressional authorization was a useless bother.[..]
Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our
Constitution? If the answer is “yes” then under the theory by which these
acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?
If the President has the inherent authority to eavesdrop, imprison citizens
on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can’t he do?The Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh, said after analyzing the
Executive Branch’s claims of these previously unrecognized powers: “If the
President has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power
to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license
summary execution.”The fact that our normal safeguards have thus far failed to contain this
unprecedented expansion of executive power is deeply troubling. This failure
is due in part to the fact that the Executive Branch has followed a
determined strategy of obfuscating, delaying, withholding information,
appearing to yield but then refusing to do so and dissembling in order to
frustrate the efforts of the legislative and judicial branches to restore
our constitutional balance.For example, after appearing to support legislation sponsored by John
McCain to stop the continuation of torture, the President declared in the
act of signing the bill that he reserved the right not to comply with it.[..]
Tragically, he apparently still doesn’t know that the Administration did
in fact have the names of at least 2 of the hijackers well before 9/11 and
had available to them information that could have easily led to the
identification of most of the other hijackers. And yet, because of
incompetence in the handling of this information, it was never used to
protect the American people
Gore did an excellent job hitting all the key points when it comes to this
administrations continual disregard for our constitution. He also hit on the new
threat facing American seniors – the failures in the new Medicare prescription
program:
For example, when the Administration was attempting to persuade Congress
to enact the Medicare prescription drug benefit, many in the House and
Senate raised concerns about the cost and design of the program. But, rather
than engaging in open debate on the basis of factual data, the
Administration withheld facts and prevented the Congress from hearing
testimony that it sought from the principal administration expert who had
compiled information showing in advance of the vote that indeed the true
cost estimates were far higher than the numbers given to Congress by the
President.Deprived of that information, and believing the false numbers given to it
instead, the Congress approved the program. Tragically, the entire
initiative is now collapsing- all over the country- with the Administration
making an appeal just this weekend to major insurance companies to volunteer
to bail it out
Gore did layout a call to all Americans and leaders to take immediate action
and try to repair the damage which has been done to our country by George Bush
and his administration:
I endorse the words of Bob Barr, when he said, “The President has dared
the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the
Constitution, I hope they will.”A special counsel should immediately be appointed by the Attorney General
to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from
investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the
President. We have had a fresh demonstration of how an independent
investigation by a special counsel with integrity can rebuild confidence in
our system of justice. Patrick Fitzgerald has, by all accounts, shown
neither fear nor favor in pursuing allegations that the Executive Branch has
violated other laws.Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress should support the
bipartisan call of the Liberty Coalition for the appointment of a special
counsel to pursue the criminal issues raised by warrantless wiretapping of
Americans by the President.Second, new whistleblower protections should immediately be established
for members of the Executive Branch who report evidence of wrongdoing —
especially where it involves the abuse of Executive Branch authority in the
sensitive areas of national security.Third, both Houses of Congress should hold comprehensive-and not just
superficial-hearings into these serious allegations of criminal behavior on
the part of the President. And, they should follow the evidence wherever it
leads.Fourth, the extensive new powers requested by the Executive Branch in its
proposal to extend and enlarge the Patriot Act should, under no
circumstances be granted, unless and until there are adequate and
enforceable safeguards to protect the Constitution and the rights of the
American people against the kinds of abuses that have so recently been
revealed.Fifth, any telecommunications company that has provided the government
with access to private information concerning the communications of
Americans without a proper warrant should immediately cease and desist their
complicity in this apparently illegal invasion of the privacy of American
citizens.Freedom of communication is an essential prerequisite for the restoration
of the health of our democracy.
Hopefully he will spark more of a movement within the Democrat party to join
together and start putting the spotlight on these issues and try to get them
corrected.
You can view the entire transcript of Gore’s speech
here.