by ANN Associate Editor Pete Combs

Absolute Power Tempts Absolute Corruption

The story about the renegade Texas Democrats (ANN: May 25, 2003 - "Feds May Investigate Killer D Episode") is a dark harbinger of what could happen, should the federal government continue its move toward a post-9/11 Big Brother Society. The restraints on general aviation, the new restrictions on airspace and a determination to know who's on what plane and where that plane is at any given moment give government officials so much latitude that it must be tempting as hell not to use the system for their own purposes.

Killer D's - Case In Point

When Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) locked the doors of the State House, trying to build a quorum for a Republican-backed vote on congressional redistricting, that was one thing. When he and the US House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, who backed the vote, began manipulating the Homeland Security Department and the FAA in an attempt to find the renegade Democrats by tracking one of their private airplanes, that was something completely different.

One Democrat, Rep. Pete Laney (D-Hale Center, below) used his Piper Cheyenne to ferry legislators and staff members from near Austin (TX) to Ardmore (OK), where they hid out until the redistricting issue died. Craddick had the Texas Department of Public Safety call the Air and Marine Interdiction Center in Riverside (CA), asking for help in tracking the Piper and hinting the aircraft was in trouble or might have crashed. DeLay contact the FAA with a similar request. He also called The Department of Justice, asking for help from the FBI and US Marshal's service.

Using the new security systems put into place since 9/11/01, Craddick and DeLay were trying to press a national security effort into service for political means. That the new system was set up by a fellow Texan, President George W. Bush, made the scenario all the more cozy. Democrats and even many Republicans are outraged at the attempt. They're further outraged by the destruction of pertinent paperwork by Craddick's stooges at the Department of Public Safety. Thank God, Tom Ridge and the Homeland Security Department, along with the FAA, have their own records. Ridge says this could end up as a criminal investigation. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta has ordered the FAA to investigate. The Travis County (TX) District Attorney has already convened a grand jury to look into the destruction of documents.

Are We Learning Yet?

The old saying, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," almost goes without saying. Having created a massive, oppressive security system in the hopes of preventing another 9/11 style aerial assault on America, the Bush administration has gone overboard and opened the door wide to the possibility of just this sort of abuse. Think this will go away when the threat of terrorism subsides - if it ever does? Don't count on it. Since when have you known Washington to build a bureaucracy the size of the Homeland Security Department and then dismantle it?

1984 passed 19 years ago without George Orwell's novel about a society completely controlled and repressed by an overzealous government and a constant state of war having been realized. From here, it looks like the only thing Orwell failed to predict was the timing.

FMI: www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/index.jsp