A History of Domestic Spying and Executive Powers

In America’s dilapidated education system students rarely receive the history lessons required to place current events in a historical perspective. With American’s talking about the wrongs of George W. Bush we first need to compare him too two of the men considered to be our countries greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Executive Orders

During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was criticized by the Copperheads, a Northern faction of the Democratic Party that opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement. World opinion of Abe Lincoln was extremely low during the Civil War as he was routinely portrayed as a brute and a tyrant in nations such as Britain and France. The Copperheads criticized Lincoln for violating the Constitution, abusing executive power, refusing to compromise with the South on slavery, declaring martial law, suspending habeas corpus, ordering 18,000 rebel leaders, public officials, and reporters arrested and held in military prisons without trial, and they held Lincoln responsible for the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers that lost their lives. Any of these criticisms sounds familiar today? In addition, Lincoln spent money without congressional authorization. No President in American history had ever wielded these expanded executive powers. Even during the Civil War era, many argued against these expansions in power through the use of executive orders. For those that argue against executive orders, without Lincoln’s usage of an executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation would never have freed the slaves.

"The Copperheads criticized Lincoln for violating the Constitution..."

During World War II Roosevelt faced many of the same problems as Lincoln. Even with Germany conquering Europe and the fall of Paris. Isolationists bitterly denounced Roosevelt as an irresponsible, ruthless warmonger. Even though, many Americans did not fear the Axis nations but in a fireside chat Roosevelt said that the United States was the Arsenal of Democracy and we should defend the freedom’s that were every man’s right.

Domestic Spying

On the topic of domestic spying. During the Civil War Lincoln instituted a program that eavesdropped on telegraph conversations. Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered domestic wiretaps and even opened the American public’s mail. Kennedy monitored civil rights activists through wiretaps. Even before the NSA, government cryptologists jumped in the domestic spy hunt with Operation Shamrock. Operation Shamrock forced private telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraph correspondence of Americans to the government. Sound anything like a program today?

"Operation Shamrock forced private telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraph correspondence"

Former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey set off a firestorm of protest in Europe when he told the French newspaper Le Figaro that he was ordered by Clinton in 1993 to transform Echelon into a tool for gathering economic intelligence. These orders include President Clinton asking the CIA to spy on Japanese auto manufacturers that were designing zero-emission cars and to forward that information to the Big Three US car manufacturers. The New York Times reported that the NSA and the CIA’s Tokyo station were involved in providing detailed information to US Trade Representatives facing Japanese car companies in a trade dispute.

President Clinton and Vice-President went even further by arguing that the president has "inherent authority" under the constitution to order physical searches that include government sanctioned break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens without any warrant.

While Al Gore didn’t invent the internet, he did try to invent a way to violate the privacy of every American using the Internet. Declassified documents show that Vice President Gore pressed to remove due process (4^th Amendment) by forcing American companies to give the US Government the ability to read any encrypted file. According to a 1996 CIA report sent to Vice President Gore the Justice Department proposed an all-out federal takeover of the computer industry. The Justice Department, proposed legislation that would ban the import and domestic manufacture, sale or distribution of encryption that does not give the federal government the ability to intercept and read any document. So where were the politicians when President Clinton authorized his wiretap programs?

In Perspective

We as a people must constantly look for perspective in every situation. Looking at the Iraq war people often forget that our first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, failed and it took 13 years to form our current Constitution. During the Civil War the Democratic Party’s platform was heavily influenced by the Peace wing of the party, calling the Civil War a "failure".

Please, before you criticize, complain, or consent to an action of a government or politician, pause for a second and ask yourself if it has ever happened before? In all likelihood it has.