Usurpation

In the wake of the black Wednesday that saw the Fourth Amendment eviscerated, the ACLU is going ahead with its legal challenge against the new legislation that Mr. Bush signed this week.  Chris Hedges makes an important point about the impact the new surveillance powers will have on journalism.  While international communications of all kinds are now theoretically exposed to surveillance without meaningful oversight, Hedges applies this very specifically to the destructive effect this will have on journalists’ relationships with confidential sources.  Even if these communications are not used against the sources in some way, the fear that they could be might very well keep many of the media’s foreign sources from communicating with American reporters here.  Of course, as with every government usurpation, the point is not even a matter of whether such power will be used in such an abusive way, but that the government should not have such a power to engage in surveillance without cause and without oversight at all.  The very existence of such a power is an invitation to abuse, and in the coming years some future administration is going to remind us of this basic truth by using these powers against its critics and political opponents.