Oh, ugh

I'm including this, a comment I made at another site, because I think it's a relevant footnote to the preceding item before we move on to case #2.

Kevin Drum, writing at WashingtonMonthly.com, said last week

although I oppose telecom immunity in the FISA bill currently being considered by Congress, I'm not "hellbent" on it. ....

[I]n a genuine national emergency like this[, 9/11 followed by the anthrax scare,] I don't have a problem with the president assuming extraordinary powers for a short period. ...

[A]s long as it's limited to a short while after 9/11, I'm OK with an expanded surveillance program.

Like the title says, ugh. Drum went on to say that his complaint what that it wasn't limited to a short time. Happily, he was trashed pretty thoroughly in comments, but the point here is that in response, the valued Kevin Hayden at American Street said

I get Kevin Drum’s point and I disagree with it. I’m not an absolutist and do believe national emergencies justify some exemptions for a Commander In Chief.

He then avowed that 9/11 didn't rise to that level (especially as compared to the Civil War and Pearl Harbor) and that an "afraid" citizenry did not justify government over-reaction. In comments there, I responded this way:

I am an absolutist for several reasons:

- The FISA law has options for dealing with supposed emergencies, including being able to file for a warrant up to 72 hours after surveillance begins. If you still can't justify it in that time, there's a damn good chance you shouldn't be doing it.

- We do not have a Commander in Chief. The military has a Commander in Chief. We have a president, an elected official who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and to see to it that "the laws are faithfully executed." [To be precise, that last bit is not from the oath of office, it's one of the president's mandated duties: Article II, Section 3.]

- Finally, if despite all the options under the law, some situation arises that you as president are convinced requires some action beyond the law, you do it and then you 'fess up and you take the fracking consequences, which should include removal from office and even criminal or civil charges if you can't convince people what you did was necessary and proper. That is, you do it as civil disobedience, as an act which you regard as necessary but which you know is illegal, not an exemption carved out from the law on your say-so, and you accept the legal jeopardy that goes along with that. If the prospect of consequences makes you hesitate when the situation is that desperate, you never should have been president in the first place.

As I said in a later comment, there has to be a bright line between what is legal and illegal, between what government officials can and cannot do, and any government official who crosses that line needs to do it knowing there can be a price to pay, perhaps a large one. Smudging, deleting, or ignoring that line makes the difference no longer between legal and illegal, between right and wrong, between what is good for a free society and what injures it, but only between good and bad liars.