Gregory D.

Lee

Read Greg's bio and previous columns here

February 11, 2008

Senate Needs to Worry About the Patriot Act, Not the Patriots

The revelation that the New England Patriots secretly videotaped the New York Giants, to decipher hand signals and review practice sessions, should leave a sour taste in the mouth of all sports fans. The football gods decided that the just punishment for the Patriots was to have the Giants upset them by scoring late into the fourth quarter leaving them no time to recover. Las Vegas casinos and sports bookies couldn’t be happier.

The Patriots’ Super Bowl loss comes after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fined the team’s head coach $500,000, the Patriots organization $250,000 and took away one of the team’s first-round draft picks.

And if that wasn’t enough to deter the Patriots from future mischief, the always suspicious, never satisfied Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) suggested that the Senate Judiciary Committee might investigate the “Spygate” matter, as it has been dubbed. He wants Commissioner Goodell to explain why the sub-rosa videotapes of the Patriots were subsequently destroyed. Specter was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the game. It’s analogous to the CIA destruction of tapes.” Huh?

The American people are entitled to be sure their senators have integrity, do their jobs and stay out of matters that don’t concern them. Videotaping a football team practice isn’t illegal, and neither is videotaping CIA interrogators waterboarding terrorists. Specter should stop trying to make a federal case out of it.

The Judiciary Committee should do its job and let Commissioner Goodell do his. I don’t think Goodell has ever suggested the Senate raise taxes or recommended how large the defense budget should be. Cheating among professional football teams is rare, and using the guise of looking into the NFL’s anti-trust exemption status is a poor excuse for the Senate to conduct hearings.

This is just one example of why the Congress has such a dismal approval rating. Senators tend to get involved in everything but what they were sent to Washington to do.

Another good example is the Judiciary Committee investigation into the president’s firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. The Committee’s chairman, Patrick Leahy, (D-VT), used the firings as a vehicle to create a controversy where there wasn’t one.

The Constitution clearly allows the president to appoint members of his administration and to dismiss them at his pleasure, not Sen. Leahy’s. When Bill Clinton fired all 94 U.S. attorneys upon taking office, there was never a peep from Leahy because he knows this is the right of the president. But don’t let the Constitution get in the way of attacking your political enemies. Leahy is so partisan and had such hatred for then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he set out to make an issue out of nothing in order to make Americans lose confidence in him. Gonzales eventually resigned, and who could blame him? The political bickering drove a good man out of public service and deters others from entering it. Who needs this grief, anyway?

Leahy eventually achieved his goal of removing an effective AG in the war on terror. The American people noticed, and Congress’s approval rating continued to take a nose dive. So long as the Democratic-controlled Senate wastes its time investigating political enemies instead of legislating, the approval ratings will continue to plummet.

The Senate needs to leave the Patriots alone and do something productive like make the Patriot Act a permanent piece of legislation, because it removes the wall between the intelligence and law enforcement communities, and facilitates the capture of terrorists bent on killing Americans.

Senators should concentrate on America’s enemies instead of their own political enemies. When they do, they will begin earning back the respect of the American people.

Gregory D. Lee is a criminal justice consult and the author of three college textbooks. He can be reached through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.

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