Angry white mail

Once again, "civil libertarians" and some members of Congress – groups often comprised of people engaged in constant attempts to control what we eat, drink, build, wear, drive, hunt and fish; where, when how and if we display Christian symbols, what chemicals we use on our lawns and how much of our money they get to take from us – are angered at George W. Bush for stomping on our privacy rights.

This time the controversy is about ''warrantless mail searches.'' Last month, President Bush attached a statement to postal legislation saying that the government has the authority to open mail without a warrant. The government has always had authority to open mail considered imminently dangerous to the public – such as if it's suspected to contain a hazardous chemical or movie script being sent to Madonna – but Bush has said this authority can also be used for foreign intelligence collection under extraordinary circumstances.

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White House spokesman Tony Snow defended the legislation in a daily briefing:

"All this is saying is that there are provisions at law for – in exigent circumstances – for such inspections. It has been thus. This is not a change in law, this is not new. What the signing statement indicates is what present law allows, in making it clear what the provisions are."

But members of Congress – Republicans and Democrats alike – say that's not what they intended the law to do. And they call it another example of a president claiming new legal authority while signing a bill into law.

Congress never intended the law to be used that way? Gosh, that never happens does it? People whose job it is to come up with impressive sounding names for stuff call this ''function creep,'' and the government practically invented it.

As for members of Congress who are gravely concerned about mail searches, let's not forget something: This is the same bunch of nosy ne'er-do-wells who claim to be having sleepless nights because your Christmas card to Grandma might be opened and read by the government, but at the same time they seem to have absolutely no problem with sticking their greasy mitts in the envelope that contains your paycheck.

If we're going to stand against all government intrusion and for freedom and liberty, let's stand against all government intrusion and for freedom and liberty. But when somebody who just threatened to put a restaurant owner out of business because somebody smoked in his establishment has a Fourth Amendment spasm over the idea that George W. Bush might be reading that owner's mail, the definition of privacy gets cloudier than Seattle in wintertime. Besides, everybody knows that the restaurant owner's mail should only be opened without a warrant if he's suspected of violating the city-wide ban on trans fats.

You can't help but wonder how many of these relatively small "privacy concerns" are red herrings being voiced by those who are in fact pulling off far greater nosiness, outright unconstitutional intrusion, or maybe just trying to get us to look the other way so we don't notice things like – oh, I don't know – that a former KKK leader is now third in the line of presidential successors (swearing-in day headline: "The Kleagle has landed").

When our right to privacy is threatened, we need to ask ourselves if those entities who claim to be defending us are doing so for constitutional reasons, or simply because they're trying to eliminate the competition. Too often it's the latter.

On the issue of warrants, why should we expect a federal court – that perhaps just the day before ruled that an old lady could be kicked out of a home she's owned for decades due to "eminent domain" laws, or that school kids have no right to sexual privacy – to suddenly become the infallible entity that will protect our privacy as it concerns our mail? In the answer to that question lies what this mail warrant mess is really all about: politics, not privacy.

All this fuss is about, at least from the president's perspective, trying to flush out terrorists who want to do us all physical harm. In that aspect, there's a very fine line between the "war on terror" and "national health care." In other words, if President Bush spins this properly, Hillary herself will be in the back room of the Chappequa Post Office ripping open envelopes until the cows, not to mention Bill, come home – all with the court's blessing.