Two vignettes

The real finalization process on my book leaves me very pressed for time today, but I wanted to note these two brief though highly illustrative items:

First, relating to the story I reported last week about the warrantless border seizure of the laptop and cellphone of a Bradley Manning supporter for the crime of visiting Manning in prison, The New York Times today editorializes in favor of greater restrictions on such searches and writes:

There is also a big difference between government agents scanning items for explosives or looking through a suitcase full of clothing, and searching through the hard drive of a laptop computer containing work papers, financial records, e-mail messages and Web site visits. . . .

The George W. Bush administration first authorized border agents to seize and view the contents of laptops, smartphones, and other devices and copy and share data with other government agencies without need for any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.

The Obama administration has tweaked the policy, requiring approval from supervisors to hold a seized device for more than five days, for example. The fundamental flaw remains: it permits the government to engage in indiscriminate and invasive fishing expeditions.

I actually laughed audibly when I read that because, on reflection, it so perfectly expresses the Change -- sorry, "tweaking" -- that Barack Obama has brought to the nation in these areas:  we're going to keep in place and aggressively enforce George Bush's unfettered laptop seizure policy for Americans, but our Goodness is reflected by our new requirement that some low-level unaccountable "supervisor" somewhere give their approval if we want to keep the citizen's seized property for more than five days.  Well, just as long as some unseen "supervisor" agrees that my seized, searched and downloaded laptop can be permanently stolen by the Federal Government and all its data permanently stored and shared even in the absence of a whiff of suspicion that I've done anything wrong, then I'm satisfied.

The Editorial also notes that legislation has been introduced by the now-defeated Russ Feingold to (a) ban all border laptop searches and seizures except where there is reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing;  (b) require a probable cause warrant from a court in order for a laptop and other electronic devices to be seized and kept by the Government; and (c) limit the ability of Homeland Security to share the information it obtains.  That illustrates why, despite his flaws, Feingold's re-election was one of the very few this year about which I cared enough to advocate.  That bill has three remaining Senate co-sponsors, all Democrats (Akaka, Wyden, Cantwell), but if the Tea Party candidates were even minimally genuine about their professed belief in liberty and limited government, shouldn't they vocally support such limitations on the Federal Government's unfettered power to invade, seize and then forever keep your laptops, cellphones and other instruments of communication and thought?  Who can simultaneously support that power and claim with a straight face to be an advocate of individual liberty and limited government?

Second, The Washington Post Editorial Page today furrows its forehead, scratches its chin, and wonders -- as its headline puts it -- "Why George W. Bush can confess to approving torture," despite the fact that, as they note, "waterboarding . . . had been considered a crime by the U.S. government for at least 90 years."  They're referring to the 43rd President's new book where he proudly confesses to having ordered waterboarding, among other torture techniques ("Damn right," he eloquently writes using his best cowboy-tough-guy falsetto).  The Post comes up with this answer:

Yet Mr. Bush feels free to confess to authorizing its use against three al-Qaeda leaders. That's because senior lawyers in his administration - most of them political appointees - provided him with secret memos declaring waterboarding and other standard torture tactics legal.

Actually, the fact that he got his own lawyers to write permission slips for him to break the law and torture people is not why he feels free to run around confessing to these war crimes.  It's because our media and political class is filled with people like Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, who last year urged that there be no criminal investigations or prosecutions, and wrote:

 On the one hand, this is a nation of laws. If torture violates U.S. law -- and it does -- and if Americans engaged in torture -- and they did -- that cannot be ignored, forgotten, swept away. When other nations violate human rights, the United States objects and insists on some accounting. It can't ask less of itself.

Yet this is also a nation where two political parties compete civilly and alternate power peacefully. Regimes do not seek vengeance, through the courts or otherwise, as they succeed each other. Were Obama to criminally investigate his predecessor for what George W. Bush believed to be decisions made in the national interest, it could trigger a debilitating, unending cycle. . . .

There is a better, though not perfect, solution, one that the administration reportedly considered, rejected and should consider again: a high-level, respected commission to examine the choices made in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, and their consequences. . . .

[A] fair-minded commission -- co-chaired by, say, former Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter -- could help the nation come to grips with its past and show the world that America is serious about doing so. It could help Americans understand how this country came to engage in what many regard as vile and un-American practices. It might help the country respond better the next time it is frightened.

The alternative, for Obama, is a series of debilitating revelations, prosecutions and arguments that could drip-drip-drip through the full length of his presidency.

An O'Connor-Souter Commission!  That'll teach people never to torture again.  Sure, Hiatt acknowledged with a yawn, we're "a nation of laws" and we can't simply "forget" when our most powerful political officials commit the most serious war crimes, etc. etc. etc..  But criminal investigations are so terribly messy, uncivil, uncouth, distracting and disruptive.  Prosecutions are for those dirty rabble on the street selling drugs to other adults whom I sometimes see from the window of my car, not for our upstanding, Serious political leaders.  When they commit grievous crimes, we should have an impotent Commission of other upstanding, Serious political leaders politely look at what happened, issue a pretty Report, and then call it a day.  That is why George W. Bush feels so free to run around beating his chest and boasting of his war crimes:  because Fred Hiatt and his media comrades, masquerading as watchdogs over the politically powerful, have deliberately created the climate where such crimes can not only be committed, but publicly confessed and heralded, with total impunity.