Encouraging News from Bob Herbert

December 19, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Dangerous Territory
By BOB HERBERT

(A ukethanks to Phyll)

There has been some encouraging news lately for those
who cherish freedom,
democracy and the rule of law.


No, I'm not talking about last week's election in
Iraq. I mean the recent
developments here at home, in the United States.

President Bush, who bloodied John McCain in the brutal
Republican primary in
South Carolina in 2000, had to cry uncle last Thursday
and accept Senator
McCain's demand that the U.S. ban cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment of
prisoners in American custody.

It was an embarrassing defeat for the Bush
administration, which, in its
high-handed approach to governing, has shown no qualms
about trampling the
fundamental tenets of a free, open and democratic
society.

But worse was to come for the president. On Thursday
night, The New York Times
disclosed that Mr. Bush had secretly authorized the
National Security Agency to
eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United
States to search for
terrorist activity "without the court-approved
warrants ordinarily required for
domestic spying."

Warrants? Why bother with warrants?

The Times article reminded me of the famous scene from
"The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre" in which the character played by
Humphrey Bogart asks to see the
badges of a group of Mexican bandits posing as
government officials.

Incredulous, one of the bandits says: "We don't need
no badges. I don't have to
show you any stinking badges."

Mr. Bush apparently feels the same way about warrants.
He said over the weekend
that he had no intention of changing his eavesdropping
policy.

Stubbornness is a well-known trait of this president.
But increasing numbers of
Americans are objecting to the administration's
contemptuous attitude toward
liberty and the law. On Friday, the Senate blocked
reauthorization of the
Patriot Act because of its dangerous intrusions on
privacy and threats to civil
liberties.

The domestic eavesdropping authorized by President
Bush was an important and at
times emotional part of the floor debate over the
Patriot Act. "You want to talk
about abuses?" said Senator Russell Feingold, a
Wisconsin Democrat. "I can't
imagine a more shocking example of an abuse of power,
to eavesdrop on American
citizens without first getting a court order based on
some evidence that they
are possibly criminals, terrorists or spies."

Mr. Feingold worried that we were playing into the
hands of terrorists by giving
up such quintessentially American values as "freedom,
justice and privacy."

The Bush version of American values, as least with
regard to the so-called war
on terror, has been a throwback to the Middle Ages.
Detainees were herded like
animals into the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where
many were abused and
denied the right to challenge - or even hear - the
charges against them. Whether
they were innocent or guilty made no difference. How's
that for an American
value?

Others were swept up in that peculiar form of justice
called extraordinary
rendition. That's when someone is abducted by
Americans and sent off to a regime
skilled in the art of torture. I spent a little time
in Ottawa with Maher Arar,
a family man from Canada who was kidnapped at Kennedy
Airport and taken to
Syria.

He wasn't a terrorist and he hadn't done anything
wrong, but that was no defense
against the sweeping madness of the Bush antiterror
policies.

"It was so scary," Mr. Arar told me. "After a while I
became like an animal."

Another blow to America's self- proclaimed standing as
a pillar of moral values
was the revelation that the C.I.A. has been operating
a super-secret network of
prisons overseas, presumably for terror suspects. If
someone who is innocent
gets caught in that particular hell, too bad. The
inmates have been deprived of
all rights.

This is dangerous territory, indeed. Nightmarish
territory. These secret prisons
are the dungeons of the 21st century.

The voices against the serial outrages of the Bush
administration are growing
steadily louder, and that's good news. It's widely
understood now that the Bush
crowd has gone much too far. When Americans cover
their hearts and pledge
allegiance, this is not the kind of behavior from
their government they usually
have in mind. This is not what the American flag is
supposed to represent.