FBI Director Robert Mueller made a significant statement in an appearance here last week, predicting that the nation’s response to Sept. 11, 2001, will be judged not only on how terrorists were pursued but also one how well civil liberties were protected.
We couldn’t agree more, and these words of wisdom and reassurance could hardly be more timely.
His remarks came a week after his boss, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. suggested at a House Judiciary Committee hearing that the president may have the legal authority to order warrantless wiretaps of communications between Americans that take place exclusively within the U.S. On the same day, President Bush, speaking in North Carolina, defended allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and e-mail without warrants.
Locally, we are still staggered by the revelation two weeks ago that the FBI had been spying on Colorado peace groups. “I can tell you that we don’t target groups as such,” Mueller said during his Denver appearance. That’s a little weak for our taste; Mueller needs to understand that such improper surveillance undermines his message regarding the balance between security and civil liberties.
Lisa Graves, senior counsel for legislative strategy with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, and Cathryn Hazouri, executive director of the Colorado ACLU, argued in a recent interview with The Post that a radical theory of unlimited executive power has taken hold in the White House, where officials have convinced themselves there are no limits on executive power, either in the law or the Fourth Amendment.
But, instead of trying to rein in the executive branch, some in Congress have proposed bills to make snooping easier, the ACLU believes. A proposal by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, would let the government eavesdrop for weeks without applying for a warrant. Another by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would authorize “program warrants” not based on suspicion about specific individuals.
Such steps surely would trump Mueller’s reassurance, sounding too much like the “writs of assistance” that gave royal officers broad authority to search colonials’ private homes before the American Revolution. The Fourth Amendment was written to prevent such arbitrary abuses.
