Earlier this month, Students Defending Democracy hosted University Law Prof. Robert Turner, who delivered a lecture titled "Warrantless Wiretaps, FISA, and the Constitution: Is Congress the Real 'Lawbreaker'?" Turner argued that the executive branch has traditionally had complete sway over foreign policy and that Congress does not have the authority to set limitations or investigate the president in this field. As a result, President Bush has every right to conduct warrantless wiretaps as part of the war on terror, and Congress does not have the right to investigate or regulate such activity.
Turner argues that warrantless wiretaps are in the best interest of the country, but I cannot agree. Wiretaps create a dangerous precedent of executive power.
The sort of unchecked executive power Turner advocates has never existed and would create the potential for tyrannical abuse of the presidency. This is not a theoretical argument based on abstraction, but an argument rooted in the presidency of Richard Nixon less than 40 years ago. Unlimited presidential power may seem like an effective tool in the war on terror, but it is a recipe for tyranny.
According to Turner, "the president has unchecked power" in the field of foreign policy, but his argument falters slightly here because this power has never truly existed before. Over time Congress acquired a certain amount of oversight on the activities of the president in foreign policy. This policy has emerged under presidents of both parties as part of the system of checks and balances inherent in our Constitution. The current controversy about presidential power demonstrates that President Bush has broken a previous precedent as opposed to just following one. Indeed, many politicians from both parties, including President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, have grave misgivings about this expansion of presidential power.
Turner's argument is flawed not only because it lacks precedent but because it would be a dangerous expansion of presidential power against the freedom of American citizens. Turner argues that the president has near limitless power over foreign policy that would escape congressional oversight. As a result, the executive branch could wiretap American citizens without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment as long as the president claims he is acting in the best interest of American foreign policy. This type of power could be easily abused by unscrupulous presidents to subvert the Constitution.
The presidency of Richard Nixon is an example of how dangerous an unchecked president could be and the importance of congressional oversight. Nixon ordered the wiretapping of his political opponents and ordered the FBI to follow those who opposed his policies. He justified these abuses by claiming that America was in a war in Vietnam and the president had to do whatever was necessary to win. Clearly this justification was flawed and ultimately not only Congress but the Supreme Court ruled that he did not have unlimited power. As a result of investigation by the other branches of government, Nixon was forced out of power and America was spared its closest encounter with dictatorship.
After the Nixon resignation, the words of John Adams were once again true that this was "a government of laws and not of men." It seems to me that this choice between laws and men is the one we have to make today when it comes to warrantless wiretaps. Even if we can believe President Bush has the best of interest of the country in mind when conducting warrantless wiretaps, he will not be president forever. His actions have set a dangerous precedent of expansion presidential power that future presidents could easily manipulate to subvert freedom.
Allowing the president to have unlimited powers creates a system in which the individual citizen is at the mercy of the people running the government to maintain basic freedoms. This is not the type of government our founding fathers envisioned when they set up the system of checks and balances. One would think a group called Students Defending Democracy would realize that unlimited executive power is not in the interests of democracy. We should not allow warrantless wiretaps or unlimited presidential power because our freedoms are guaranteed only when we have a government that is rooted in laws and not the prerogatives of individual men.
Sam Shirazi's appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at sshirazi@cavalierdaily.com
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