Reprogramming the Infinite Loop

A very good reminder of how Bush and Gang broke the FISA law with their illegal wiretapping and spying.
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http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=69308

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It has now been three months since the Bush administration reluctantly admitted that it has been conducting warrantless surveillance on American citizens, despite the explicit prohibitions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Since then, the public has been treated to endless and, unfortunately, fruitless discussion about the issue. We have experts and scholars earnestly responding, and responding yet again, to administration arguments (both legal and factual) that can best be described as protean, internally inconsistent, and occasionally evanescent. We have the administration refusing to explain the program, but enjoining everyone to "trust them." And we have legislators trying to "fix" a problem that is undefined by proposing new laws that the administration doesn't want. We are, in short, trapped in an infinite loop.

In computer parlance, an infinite loop is a coding sequence that has no effective exit because of a flaw in the program. It's a bit like trying to call your HMO with what you think is the flu and having a recording guide you through a series of numbers that land you back at the initial message welcoming you to the system. Of course, you can end that phone loop simply by hanging up. The only way to permanently extract yourself from an infinite loop in a computer program, however, is to find the programming defect. Press the refresh key, check the power chord, buy a new computer -- none of these fixes will work as long as the fundamental flaw in the program is ignored.

If you have any doubt that the NSA spying "debate" is trapped in an infinite loop, you need only review two pieces of evidence. The first, which we'll call "Exhibit A," is an article, dated March 8, 2006, entitled "Gonzales: NSA Program Doesn't Need a Law." Aha, you say, a mere headline. But this is what the article says: "The Attorney General made clear Wednesday, March 8, that the White House is not seeking congressional action to inscribe the National Security Agency's monitoring into U.S. law."

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Astoundingly, it is the absolutely radical theory of presidential powers in this memo, clearly espoused by the President, the Vice President, and their senior staff, but written by an extreme conservative whose views in the now infamous "torture memo" have largely been dismissed by those inside and outside the administration, that is the fundamental flaw in our "program" for national debate. It is this theory that has trapped us in an infinite loop of discussion about issues that rational persons of good faith should be able to resolve: the obviously illegal surveillance of American citizens; prolonged detentions without due process; renditions to countries known for their abysmal treatment of prisoners; and, most shamefully, our own adoption of torture. But until we "debug" this program by fearlessly and unflinchingly addressing the President's theory of executive power, and its unstated false premises -- especially the claim that we are at war by virtue of an undeclared, undefined, and unending "war on terror" -- we will all continually find ourselves at different places on the same infinite loop.

house and senate.... all these powers will evaporate like shrub's poll numbers.