Ah, that harbinger of modern American civil liberties, the PATRIOT Act. Smell that sweet freedom patriots! Citizens everywhere are sleeping more soundly at night knowing FedGov is on the job.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller spent much of March doing something neither man was used to doing: apologizing. On March 10, Mueller admitted that the agency hadn’t told the truth about its uses of PATRIOT Act powers to investigate Americans, admitting that nearly 50,000 privacy-busting “National Security Letters” had been sent in 2005 instead of the 30,000 Congress had been told of. Three days later, Gonzales walked the same plank to confess that the Department of Justice may have lied to Congress about the reasons why eight U.S. Attorneys had been dismissed and replaced with less-experienced drones who’d be more willing to investigate Democrats.
Civil libertarians have been warning that the PATRIOT Act would be abused since before it became law. They were right. There are many qualities we should demand from our civil servants, but arrogance is not one of them.
Civil liberties watchdogs, whose numbers had swelled since 2001, saw the revelations as a confirmation of their worst fears, and PATRIOT reauthorization became a tougher sell. According to Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.), what really outraged senators wasn’t the scandal itself so much as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ refusal to meet with them to discuss the PATRIOT Act, the expiring provisions, and various related issues.
Stupid, stupid Alberto. He set himself up. His deputy has already resigned.
It is only a matter of time before Alberto Gonzales, like Donald Rumsfeld, is forced out. I don’t blame Gonzales personally. Government has grown too big and powerful for its own good. Alberto Gonzales is the symptom, not the cause.
Twenty-thousand lies and a bag full of spit are all you should expect from Washington. The faces and names change, but the dishonesty and arrogance remain the same.