Elizabethtown, KY--April 15, 2007
The disappearance of millions of White House Administration e-mails that were supposed to be kept by federal law demonstrates the hypocrisy of an administration that wants to know everything about its citizens; but withhold even that which is legally required concerning its own actions and communications.
It is widely suspected the Bush Administration has taken actions to spy on the e-mails, phone calls, Internet-activity and other forms of communication by ordinary citizens and others in ways that violate the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Even now National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is asking Congress to authorize an expansion of FISA, to liberalize how that law can be used.
Yet day after day the Bush Administration stonewalls the courts and the American people by refusing to furnish the records and evidence the courts and the law require it keep and provide.
While the administration goes about its illegal and unprecedented spying on the American people, the administration tells the courts it can not provide information about its own activities because of "national security concerns".
Now it has been revealed the administration was using e-mail accounts outside the normal communication systems of government in an attempt to hide governmental e-mails from being recorded normally as required by the Presidential Records Act.
In another example of White House stonewalling and manipulation of information it should provide, the Senate Judiciary Committee is encountering great difficulty in obtaining the documents regarding the Attorney General's U.S.-Attorney firing flap.
According to Susan Crabtree of The Hill, [Senator Patrick] "Leahy said the committee is facing several obstacles in its investigation. He argued that nearly 3,500 documents the Dept. of Justice has released thus far are selective, incomplete and highly redacted, and he also said the White House has refused to provide relevant documents and access to key staff. A White House announcement last night that officials there and at the Republican National Committee (RNC) have lost e-mails that political operatives were using on RNC accounts in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act constitutes yet another impediment to the probe, according to Leahy."
Thus the Bush Administration continues to operate with a double standard: It violates the laws protecting the privacy of its citizens, and then violates the laws governing the archiving of its own communication activities.
The Bush Administration has turned America upside-down. Instead of protecting the laws of the land, it breaks them. Instead of acting as a government of the people, it behaves like it is a government above the people. Instead of being an open government in an open society, it is a government acting secretly, while spying on its people.
The Bush Administration has created an America that is no longer familiar to its citizens. A system of government that was once perceived by its own citizens as the beacon of freedom, is increasingly becoming a system of government its citizens no longer recognize--and can no longer trust.
Someone needs to tell Mr. Bush that "everything" did not change on 9/11. Yes, we were attacked. Yes, we must be vigilant. But it did not change the law. And it can not be used as an excuse for destroying the civil rights of our citizenry, or for violating the laws that regulate government itself.