Essays

Power Corrupts President's Precepts

by Larry DeWitt
December 29, 2005

This is a brief "letter to the editor" published in the Baltimore Sun newspaper on December 29, 2005. Its topic is the warrantless wiretapping program of the Bush Administration.

The English historian Lord Acton gave us a famous insight about human nature when he cautioned: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."

Our Founding Fathers used this same insight in designing the Constitution with checks and balances on political power as its most fundamental principle. Thus the actions of the president are checked by congressional oversight and judicial review, and this is as true in times of war as it is in times of peace.

Even if we accept - as I do - that President Bush's intentions in authorizing government wiretapping of Americans without a court warrant were honorable, such an action violates the most fundamental principle of the Constitution ("NSA mines data on a wide scale," Dec. 24).

No law or provision of the Constitution permits such an unchecked exercise of political power.

The fact that President Bush claims the authorization to exercise such unchecked power shows that he too has fallen victim to the disease that Lord Acton warned us about.