Foggy Bottom

Since it has come to light that George W. Bush, through the National Security Agency, has been snooping on telephone and Internet communications without benefit of warrant or oversight of any kind, there have been quite a few worried, if tentative, complaints that we are edging toward a monarchy. "King George..." is how the conversation usually begins.

While the President could indeed be said to have arrogated unto himself some pretty monarchical powers, I think the comparison does not convey the immensity of the constitutional crisis posed by his intentional bypassing of judicial oversight. Frankly, I don't think comparisons to royalty serve us very well in an era when kings act more like socialites, their crowns slightly askew, disco-ing till dawn. The graver modern risk comes not from kings but from dictators. Those who dictate. Those who rule by their word alone, whose word is law, superseding all other inquiry.

The debate is playing out in the media fuzzily, haltingly, perhaps because of the conflation of two questions. One is whether the executive can eavesdrop on citizens at all. It can. The other is whether exercise of that power rests entirely upon the say-so of the President or his agents. It does not. Yet breathless radio and TV debates pit those two issues against each other. "He has the power to protect us by listening in!" versus "He has no power to invade our privacy!" The issue is better stated by interconnecting the two premises: He has the power to listen in when he has gotten permission by presenting reasons to do so that are within a warrantable range of relevance to law-enforcement goals.

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