Schwartz - J. Edgar Hoover back from the dead?

Worrisome developments in the US. No one is talking about the moral implications of a "national intelligence director," a supreme chief ruling over the CIA, FBI and perhaps even the NSA. My God. And what's this business about being able to wire-tap "lone wolf," i.e., individual, terrorists: will there be an ethical procedure, one which complies with civil rights, about determining who is a suspected terrorist, or shall Ashcroft's failed McCarthyian T.I.P.S. project, or even Poindexter's thwarted Orwellian Total Information Awareness program, finally come to pass? And how about Peter Gross, new head of the CIA, who wants to insert more undercover agents across the world? What are the possible consequences? But no one's asking. Nope, they're more worried about beaucratization than totaliarianism. J. Edgar Hoover threatens to come back from the dead, and this time he won't have the Dulles brothers to compete with; nope, he gets the whole shebang: a hundred billion dollar budget, lots of new toys, and an army of misguided patriots at his command. 'But if a good person is given the position,' you might argue, 'then we'll be safe.' Perhaps, but how long before someone really vile takes power? This is exactly like the Iraq War: it doesn't matter whether or not Saddam Hussein was an awful tyrant; we Americans were lied to--next time it may not be a genocidal dictator, it may be a benign leader and whose government that our special interests don't like. Don't think that could happen? Ask the Chileans about their September 11th.

"I believe creating a national intelligence director is a huge mistake," said Representative Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican today. "It's another bureaucracy, it's another layer of government. It would not have prevented 9/11 and it will not prevent another 9/11." He's dead right. The most terrifying possibility is this: when another September 11th happens despite the existence of a national intelligence director, I wager that the American government shall grant this figure even more power!

What was it that Norman Mailer said? Politicians lack ethical imagination. Well, this legislation just proves it.

See this entry and the following newslinks:
-about the new legislation: Yahoo! News and BBC Online
-about the new CIA chief: BBC Online