Alito, Democracy, Freedom, Privacy, America

So it’s now Associate Justice Samuel Alito. What will become of my America now?

What will become of the checks and balances the founding fathers (mothers were considered chattel in the “good old days”) so carefully constructed in the Constitution? That very same Constitution Alito and his fellow strict constructionists profess to revere? The current White House occupant has stretched the concept of the Imperial Presidency to its zenith; President Bush obviously thinks can do anything he wants to do – just as long as he can tie it – however tenuously – to national security, the war on terror, al-Qaeda. And a newly right-tilting Supreme Court is unlikely to tighten the leash on even this runaway Presidency especially if Alito – who has upheld executive branch power in his lower court rulings – becomes the deciding vote.

And what of privacy in a world where the White House thinks it can eavesdrop on any American’s phone conversation without court permission – just on some low level operative’s suspicion there may be an insipient terrorist supporter on the other end. Next will be e-mail; the Bush Administration has already asked the FCC to force internet providers to build the equivalent of wiretapping code into their software. The Justice Department has already demanded search companies turn over millions of websites scanned by users – a demand only Google is resisting. This time our names are stripped off the searches; next time they won’t be.

And oh yes --- there’s that other privacy issue. A woman’s right to control her own body. Otherwise known as Roe v. Wade. Will we be forced back to the future --- and have only dangerous back street abortions again or desperate, botched wire hanger attempts in our bloody bathrooms?

Is this the America I signed up for? Stop the world; I want to get off.