My biggest criticism of the Bush administration isn’t the war in Iraq.  Or the post-Katrina cock ups.  Or even the nauseating combination of corruption, bad policy and ineptitude that dominated his second term.  My biggest criticism is that the Bush administration - from the top down - thinks it’s okay to use the United States Constitution as toilet paper.

Everyone in America suffered as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some more than others as loved ones and livelihoods were lost and lives changed forever.  The government’s response since then has been repeated fear-mongering in order to further its political agenda.  From the color-coded terror alerts to a ridiculous and unnecessary ban on liquids and gels aboard airplanes, the Bush administration has used fear as a weapon against the American people.  We’re told to fear terrorists, as if they’re hiding in the bushes with AK-47s.  We’re told to fear our neighbors, who might be terrorists, and report suspicious activity to the FBI (remember Operation TIPS?)  We’re told to fear to the point that travelers now line up to take off their shoes and jackets, take laptops out, and put civil liberties in the bin.

There have been several purposeful and egregious violations of the Constitution in the last seven years, but for brevity’s sake I will focus on two:  warrantless wiretapping and illegal surveillance of US citizens.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states that the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Think about that for a moment; it’s powerful stuff.  Those words ended the days when kings held all sovereignty and the masses had no rights.  In the aftermath of 9/11 the Bush administration, in all its wisdom, decided that civil liberties and the Bill of Rights mattered less than stopping terrorism.  So, in order to stop the “bad guys”, they spied on the phone calls of Americans without obtaining any warrant or court authorization.  When exposed, they claimed that obtaining warrants would harm the intelligence assets tasked with hunting terrorists.  Did they overlook the fact that Congress created special courts in the ’70s to hear classified evidence under the  Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?  They knew but they didn’t care.  The mission of “stop the terrorists” justified any action in their minds, even the abandonment of principles that have guided our nation for more than 200 years.

Their arrogance didn’t stop at illegally monitoring phone calls.  Former AT&T employee, patriot and hero Mark Klein exposed the depth of the government’s duplicity when he revealed that our National Security Agency had in effect split the data flow from a key internet backbone and was copying all internet traffic for its own purposes.  It did this with AT&T’s complicity.  Hell, they even graciously hosted NSA equipment and personnel in a secret room at an AT&T facility in California.  The list goes on: the USA PATRIOT Act empowered federal agents to obtain “sneak and peak” warrants, whereby a premises could be searched without notification to its owner.  And don’t forget the national security letters.  These were sent to businesses demanding customer data and threatening harsh retaliation if their very existence was discussed.

(Even as I type this I’m getting worked up into a tizzy as I see these offenses one after another.  These are the policies I expect from North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and Myanmar, not the home of the free and land of the brave).

An argument can be made that saving American lives should be the highest priority, and this goal should supersede all others, even to the point of ignoring Constitutional prohibitions.  Saving lives is indeed a noble goal, but what is life without liberty?  We’d be much safer from terrorism, not to mention violent crime, if we had a police state that closely monitored all of its citizens.  Where do we draw the line?  After all, if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, right?  Right?

Remember, just because the government does something, that doesn’t make it legal.  President Obama, who at one time taught Constitutional Law, should know better.  My call to the new president is to resist the seductive logic offered by the national security apparatus that these measures are necessary to keep Americans safe.  Presidents take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and I expect President Obama to honor that pledge.  If not, history has shown that citizens are apt to take matters into their own hands.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  - Thomas Jefferson