About six months after 9/11, my friend and I flew to New York so I could apartment hunt before grad school.  On the way back, our plane was late leaving LaGuardia, so we had to make a mad dash through the Memphis airport to make our connection.  This was when they were still randomly searching people at the gate, so (I guess because of our mad dash in) they told us one of us had to be searched before we were allowed to board.  I volunteered, but I was really annoyed about it.  I knew I wasn't a terrorist.  What good did it do for someone to search my bag?  “Hey, cheer up,” the gate attendant said, as she handed my bag back to me.  “No harm done.  You want to be safe, don't you?”

I think this is why it’s hard for a lot of us to understand the full implications of allowing the executive branch of our government and its attendant agencies to listen to the phone conversations of US citizens and legal residents without a warrant.  Yeah, it’s a little annoying, but we know we're not terrorists, so it’s not like we're saying anything for which we could be arrested.  And we want to be safe.  Of course we want to be safe.  The Bush Administration is betting we want to be safe above all else, and that’s why we'll let this go.  Here are two reasons why we shouldn't:

1. It’s not keeping us as safe as other, legal things would.

            A national risks and vulnerabilities assessment.  Improvements to the airline passenger screening system.  Sharing terrorist watchlists with other countries. Government-wide information sharing.  These are all things recommended by the 9/11 Commission as ways to keep us safe.  These are all things that, had we been doing them before 9/11, almost certainly would have prevented it from happening. (Caveat: It may not have prevented any terrorist attack in some shape or form, but it would have prevented the coordinated large-scale attack.)  These are all things that do not infringe on this particular right.  These are all things that, as of December, had been left undone or barely started by this Administration (read the report card – it’s scary.)

2. Bye- bye, Constitutional democracy.

            Remember all those nice checks and balances we learned about in junior high Civics?  How they were installed in the Constitution by men who feared one branch (especially the executive branch) becoming so powerful they controlled everything?  By spying on US citizens without warrants, the executive branch has sidestepped the checks of the legislative branch (by failing to get permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – there was an excellent diary at Daily Kos in December about why the Authorization for War against Al Qaeda doesn't cut it) and the judicial branch (that pesky  4th Amendment again).  If we, as US citizens, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, whoever, say that this is acceptable, we've just greenlighted the destruction (or, at least, willful ignorance of) the very document that is at the foundation of our system of government.  If the executive branch can gather information about anyone at anytime and use it however they wish, there is no guarantee that they will stop at terror suspects. There is no guarantee that a future President won't take it even further. It’s a slippery slope, and we're letting them take the brakes off the wagon.

Sure, the next time you're talking on the phone the government’s probably not going to be listening in.  But isn't it sad that in the United States of America, in the year 2006, there’s even the slightest chance that they could be?