In the 1998 suspense thriller "Enemy of the State," Gene Hackman, who plays a disgruntled former employee of the National Security Agency, says of the increasingly surveillance-happy U.S. government:

They get into your bank statements, computer files, email, listen to your phone calls...Every wire, every airwave. The more technology used, the easier it is for them to, keep tabs on you. It's a brave new world out there. At least it better be.

Late last year the New York Times revealed -- after more than a year of holding publication of the story -- that shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to spy on domestic phone calls and emails in search of evidence of terrorist activity. And while the NSA has always enjoyed the capacity and authority to wiretap American citizens, Bush allowed the program to move forward without the formality of obtaining or even bothering to request warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, created in 1978 for this very purpose.

Since that revelation -- one which has provoked concern and condemnation from Democrats, certain Republicans, and civil libertarians -- Bush has sought to present the program as a necessary means to protect the country from another terrorist attack. In today's hyper-sensitive security environment, that threat is always on the horizon, whether the facts bear it out or not. Terrorism has become the catch-all excuse for the expansion of presidential authority, though little of that expansion can honestly be said to have made America much safer.

Even more shamelessly, Bush has continually argued that his constitutional powers as a president in a time of war (a war that, by his own admission, may have no end in sight) allows him the opportunity to pick and choose which laws should apply to his actions. For a man whose presidency has revolved around making the world safe for democracy, his ability to undermine the rule of law in the name of "security" heaps doubt upon his own commitment to America's democratic traditions, and even more on their establishment elsewhere. In sum, Bush's surveillance plans have nothing to do with security, but everything to do with power.

I may be left-leaning in my political beliefs and thus predisposed to disagreeing with Bush, but this is one issue on which I cannot see, much less understand the other side. The government -- a conservative one, no less -- has unilaterally granted itself the powers to surveil the private communications of American citizens, using as justification the "Trust us, if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" and "I'm the president and I have the right to do this simply because I say so" arguments. This is the type of unfounded expansion of federal power that would, in most any other instance, make conservatives quiver. But since most Republicans in Congress have linked their fortunes directly to Bush, they instead keep their mouths shut and mindlessly repeat the administration's talking points. It's an embarrassing spectacle, made worse by the fact that the Democratic Party hasn't shown the intelligence nor principle to call this program what it is -- illegal, ineffective, and downright creepy. Should they do so, they might be surprised how many independent and right-leaning voters agree with them.

I'm not the type to think that the NSA is tapping into our email accounts and listening in on our phone calls just because they can. I'd like to think they're a little more professional-minded than that. But government isn't very good at subtlety -- if given power, they tend to use it broadly and, at times, excessively. This is the danger with Bush's wiretapping program. As much as he'd like to claim that he's only using the power against those with possible links to terrorism, his administration's view of what it means to be patriotic lends itself to thinking that it's only a matter of time before we find out that the wiretaps included any number of innocent anti-war, environmental, and civil liberties groups. That's not American, nor is it democratic.

Since there is only so much to draw from Gene Hackman in one column, I'm going to close with the words of Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, a magazine for which I interned shortly after college. She writes:

I'm happy to let Dick Cheney analyze my Google records and discover that my most frequently searched terms are "Brad," "Angelina," and "baby," if the NSA will data-mine his computer for the keywords: "Joseph," "Wilson," and "wife." The White House can eavesdrop on my cell phone calls to my daughter, if it gives a detailed accounting of its dealings with Jack Abramoff. I don't even mind if George Bush learns the title of the last book I checked out of the library, if the FBI will tell me when the last time W. was in a library.

If NSA spying were really an issue of security, as the all-out media assault by the Bush administration claims it to be, it should accept the deal. But it's not. Rather this is all part of their neocon dream of an American Empire. You see, in a republic the lives of private citizens are private while the workings of public servants are public, but in an empire, Caesar's dealings remain shrouded in secrecy while he spies on citizens looking for threats to the regime. It is up to the Congress to put a stop to this idolatry: the emperor as God, mysterious and omniscient.

Disclaimer: Though this has not affected my opinion on this matter, it bears mention. I was born in Switzerland and am a Dutch citizen, though have been in the U.S. since 1997. I also work for an embassy in Washington, though my opinions do not reflect nor were inspired by those of my employer.