Freedom in the Balance
June 27, 2013
Mr. Speaker:
Three
major developments have occurred within the last six weeks that are
each disturbing by themselves, but extremely alarming when viewed
together.
The
first was the revelation that for more than two years, one of the most
powerful and feared agencies of the federal government was used to
harass and intimidate individual Americans based upon their political
beliefs.
Evidence
has already established that hundreds of conservative groups were
subjected to invasive interrogations when they sought to participate in
the political process. This pattern of conduct was not limited to
applications under section 501(c), but included audits of established
conservative groups and individuals as well. This conduct reached the
highest levels of the IRS. A similar pattern of abuse has been
demonstrated in several other agencies including the Department of Labor
and the Environmental Protection Agency.
These facts are undisputed and their implications are utterly toxic to a free society.
The
second development was news that the Justice Department had
surreptitiously seized the telephone records of some 20 reporters
covering Congress for the Associated Press in an obvious attempt to
discourage whistleblowers from talking to the press.
Fox
News Reporter James Rosen and his family were stalked by authorities as
he tried to get to the bottom of the Benghazi scandal. To obtain the
search warrant to allow this, the Attorney General of the United States
filed an absolutely spurious claim with the federal court charging that
Rosen had conspired to violate the Espionage Act – the same act under
which the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953.
The
message to reporters asking inconvenient questions of the
administration could not possibly have been more powerful or terrifying.
And this week, the head of AP reported that their news sources have
dried up in response to these naked acts of intimidation.
The
third development is that the federal government has swept up the phone
and internet records of millions of Americans in the name of state
security.
The
practice of the government searching your personal records without
having first established reason to believe you have committed a crime is
expressly forbidden by the Fourth Amendment –which was adopted in
direct response to British officials indiscriminately searching homes
and records for evidence of contraband.
Yet this government has done precisely that on a scale unimaginable in colonial times searching for evidence of terrorism.
If
I know what web sites you’ve visited and what phone numbers you’ve
called – I know a very great deal about your political and religious
beliefs, your personal relationships, your sexual interests, your mental
and physical health, your family finances.
And
with that information in the hands of officials who have already
demonstrated a clear willingness and ability to use their power to
intimidate political adversaries into silence and to discourage
reporters from asking embarrassing questions, our society could very
quickly cross a very bright line between freedom and authoritarianism.
As
if to underscore the point, the administration’s spokesman recently
told a national television audience that quote -- “the law is
irrelevant.” He called these matters “a distraction.” What does that
say about a society that once prided itself on being a nation of laws
and not of men?
All around us in this Capitol are the trappings of the Roman Republic. They serve as an inspiration – but also as a warning.
The
Roman Republic didn’t end because Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his
legion. It ended because that illegal act was not effectively resisted
and led to another usurpation and then another and then another over a
period of years. It was the accumulation of many such infringements
that brought the inexorable decline of freedom and set the stage for
Rome’s age of tyrants.
That is what Jefferson meant when he said the price of liberty is
eternal vigilance. My great fear, as we adjourn tomorrow to celebrate
the 237th anniversary of American freedom, is that sometime between the
barbecues and the fireworks we shrug off these profound developments and
go about as if nothing has happened.
This summer of 2013
has brought us to a crossroads, and I rise today to urge the House to
give these events its full and undivided attention. All the facts
surrounding these matters must be fully laid out, those responsible held
fully accountable, and the rule of law – and especially of our
Constitution -- fully restored.
