To start off, I will admit that I am probably going to be harping on points that have been made repeatedly, but with the recent passing of the Telecom Immunity bill, I feel like I will join the cacophonic chorus throughout the country.

To summarize briefly what’s going on for those who don’t know, our President asked several Telecom companies for personal phone records as an effort in the war on terror. This asking did not require a warrant, and the Telecom companies obliged, and are now getting sued for violating federal privacy laws. The law that was just passed will essentially drop these suits, and allows the Telecom companies to violate federal privacy laws freely simply if the Executive asks.

The Executive branch asking for this type of information without a warrant is just plain scary. The “I don’t do anything wrong, what do I care” argument is most often fought by the slippery slope argument: “Think of what will happen next.” I’m going to put that largely pointless debate aside; there is always someone willing to give up a little for a bigger cause, throwing caution to the wind.

Instead, what worries me is the disregard for the Constitution, which has been a growing problem throughout Bush’s presidency. Our Constitution is what we are trying to defend from terrorism. Members of the executive branch need a warrant to obtain those records, otherwise it is an unreasonable search. Telecom companies have lawyers and should know their rights, they do not need to succumb to the whims of a frightened executive just because he says so. I would have at least hoped they would have had more regard for their customers.

This situation obviously parallels the Guantanamo detainees situation, but has an added twist of moving further down that slippery slope I wanted to stay away from. At least with the detainees, we can at least assume that there was something resembling probably cause that got them there in the first place. While I completely disagree with the following idea, one could conceivably pass the lack of trials and torturous conditions off as a bit more fair given the circumstances.

What both of these examples show is that the current methods of combatting terrorism are actually defacing our Constitution. And while I would loathe to be another one of “the terrorists are winning” liberals, I will instead simply ask that we re-examine exactly what it is we are trying to protect. If it is “our way of life,” as is so often stated, we should think about where “our way of life” came from in the first place.

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I don’t want to sound preachy, but I really think that a lot of the discussions we have about these sorts of issues tend to either obscure or miss the point entirely. The next post will be less… like this. 🙂