Guest Editorial
All the Resident's Men
By Christian Livemore

July 30, 2002 (APJP) -- The Bush Administration is moving forward with its plans for a nationwide citizen tipster network, despite passage in the House on Friday of the Homeland Security bill, which includes a specific ban on the program.

Several other worrisome measures have been instituted since Governor Bush assumed power that, taken together, paint a deeply unsettling picture of the direction we may all be headed.

On July 12, the Secret Service detained a White House reporter for questioning when he asked Ari Fleischer questions that Fleischer did not like.

Earlier in the year, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo to all employees of the Justice Department instructing them to resist all requests for information and documentation made under the Freedom of Information Act.

And immediately after he took office, Bush used executive privilege to prevent the release of presidential papers of Ronald Reagan, which were scheduled to be released in January 2001 under the Freedom of Information Act, which seems to be a kind of kryptonite to the Bush Administration.

"The administration is continuing to pursue Operation TIPS. We're continuing with that course of action," said Barbara Comstock, spokeswoman for Attorney General John Ashcroft, on Friday. "We believe the program represents an important resource and that it's been misrepresented to date."

So the Bush Administration seems to have decided that they, not the Congress and not the people, are the sole arbiters of what is best for the United States. This is especially odd considering that Bush is the same man who campaigned on the credo, "I trust the people" and that the Republican Party claims to cherish above all else the principles of states' rights and personal freedom. That government is not the solution, but rather the problem.

No doubt Former Governor Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft would cite necessity as their reason for defying a direct Congressional ban.

Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) intends to recruit American citizens to report "suspicious" activities they observe. Among the types of people the government wants to recruit are bus drivers, utility meter readers, and mail carriers.

Is there a Mosque near the corner where your bus driver drops you? Watch out, ol' Ralph the bus driver has his eye on you. Got a letter from your cousin who's touring the pyramids in Egypt? Your mail carrier may report you for receiving terrorist literature. For that matter, you'd better hope you're on good terms with Jim next door. If your dog keeps him up at night with his barking, ol' Jim might report you out of spite. "I'm not positive, Mr. FBI man, but I think I saw an Arab man leaving my neighbor's house yesterday. Yes, that house right there. The one with the dog barking outside."

It is important to note that the Representative responsible for inserting the ban was not Tom Daschle or Paul Wellstone or any of the other liberal democrats that Bush, Ashcroft and the rest of the bunch like to blame when they don't get their own way. It is one of their own, House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

Armey's reason? "To ensure that no operation of the department can be construed to promote citizens spying on one another."

Armey must have taken a look at the Constitution lately. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..." U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment

I know what you're thinking. It's only one little program. Everybody has to give up a little something if we want to defeat terrorism.

Well, it's quote day, and here's another fun one to know and share, this time from Ben Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to achieve temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Franklin knew that we lose our freedom a little at a time. One minute we allow the Constitution to be ignored for "the good of the country," and the next thing you know we're pigging out on Thanksgiving turkey while somebody steals a presidential election, and we're happy to give in to taunts of "Get over it" and "Sore Loserman."

The Bush administration has also appointed a large number of officials who served under his father and Ronald Reagan. Most prominent among these of course are Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Several others of these appointees have alarming connections to the Iran Contra scandal, most notably John Poindexter, Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte and Otto Reich.

In January 2002, Bush appointed Poindexter Director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office (IAO). Poindexter, you'll remember, instructed Oliver North to lie to Congress about their arms for hostages dealings.

The reason Poindexter's appointment in particular is so worrisome is slightly complicated.

Ronald Reagan issued several executive orders to pave the way for his plan to invade Nicaragua. They included orders, which can be found at The Federal Register of Executive Orders at www.archives.gov, providing for suspension of the Constitution and imposing martial law, and granted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) broad powers in the case of a crisis such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad."

FEMA is now one of the federal agencies set to come under control of the new Office of Homeland Security. In January, the Pentagon, where Poindexter is currently assigned, requested the authority to deploy military troops for domestic law enforcement duties. Bush and Tom Ridge, Director of Homeland Security, have advocated the use of these troops.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits such use of military troops. However, a clause in Section 15 states that such force may be used if "expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress." The Homeland Security Act, with its inclusion of FEMA under its roof and the emergency powers granted that organization by Reagan's executive orders, could be argued to constitute the act of Congress Bush would need to invoke such use of troops. And with the Supreme Court, such use might stand up to a court challenge.

So we are now in a situation where Bush could invade Iraq, and if the public tries to exercise its lawful First Amendment right of freedom of assembly to protest, Bush could use U.S. military troops to arrest the protestors. And if the press writes about it, he can throw them in jail, too.

But let's get back to the appointees.

Elliot Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of lying to Congress about the Reagan Administration's Contra program and received one of Bush Sr.'s Christmas Eve pardons that shut down Independent Council Lawrence Walsh's investigation. Abrams is now serving as the National Security Council's senior director for democracy, human rights and international operations.

Otto Reich, now assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, headed up under Reagan something called, in true Orwellian newspeak, the Office of Public Diplomacy, a propaganda department in the State Department that was staffed with CIA and Pentagon "psychological warfare" specialists and reported to - guess who? -- Oliver North.

The department's mission, according to "Foreign Policy In Focus," was to "mislead the American public by disseminating false information, discrediting reporters whose work the Reagan administration did not like, and exploiting other propaganda tactics normally used to confuse and manipulate the populations of enemy countries." The Office of Public Diplomacy was later found to be illegal and shut down.

This mission statement sounds eerily similar to one former Governor Bush recently proposed to provide false news stories to overseas press outlets to aid in the war on terror.

And I've saved arguably the best for last.

John Negroponte. As U.S. ambassador to Honduras under Reagan, Negroponte helped to prosecute the Contra war against Nicaragua and helped strengthen the military dictatorship in Honduras, which was, according to "Foreign Policy In Focus," "both a close ally of the Reagan administration and was disappearing dozens of political opponents in classic death squad fashion." Reagan removed Ambassador Jack Binns when Binns urged Washington to stop the killings and appointed in his place Negroponte, who let the killings continue. Negroponte is now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

I bet they seat Negroponte and the Ambassador from Nicaragua really far apart.

Now. I told you those stories so I could tell you this one.

The details of these appointments may explain why Bush used executive privilege to seal Reagan's presidential papers.

A lawsuit brought by Public Citizen on behalf of several historical organizations finally forced the release of approximately 58, 850 pages. But 150 pages remain "under review" by Bush administration officials. The pages reportedly contain "deliberations about potential appointees to public office," perhaps appointees like Poindexter, Abrams et al. The White House will not say whether the 150 pages being withheld will ever be released to the public.

It is impossible not to draw a parallel between the 150 pages in question and the 18 minutes erased from the Nixon tapes when the Supreme Court struck down Nixon's claim of executive privilege and ordered him to turn the tapes over to Congress.

Out of over 60,000 pages of Reagan's papers, what is in those 150 pages that the Bush Administration does not want us to see?

And (while this is total speculation) this Reagan papers debacle may partly answer the question so many folks have been asking since Election 2000. "Why steal this election? Why this one in particular?"

Given evidence gathered by the NAACP of widespread vote-rigging and voter fraud in Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and Missouri, it does appear that the Bush family was prepared to install Bush in the White House at all costs. If whatever those 150 pages of the Reagan papers contain that Bush so desperately does not want us to see has to do with his father's dealings as Vice President and later President, their scheduled release just as the new president was set to take office would be ample motive to steal an election.

Let's assume for a moment that the Bush Administration has only pure motives for these transgressions against our personal liberties (forgetting the lengths to which they went to achieve victory in Florida). Once these laws are on the books, they can be used for a sinister purpose perhaps not originally intended.

William Pitt knew that when tyrants want to take away our freedoms, they claim it's necessary to preserve the public safety. One minute you're dancing 'til dawn and driving home on militia-free streets; before you know it, you have to obtain a pass from the Komandant to visit your grandma in Des Moines.

Since he took office, Bush has put in place the machinery to effect a complete takeover of the U.S. government. And the Democrats in Congress are just watching it happen.

You hear that noise? That's the sound of the Honorable Mr. Pitt rolling in his grave.