Jonathan Swift's satirical methods and modern proposal applications

English Literature - Satire

PROPOSAL to EXPAND the AUTHORITIES of the HOMELAND

SECURITY SECRETARY as NECESSITATED by the WAR on TERROR

This nation's lead position in the global War on Terror makes it the premier target for the inevitable projection of international terror on its citizens and sovereign territories.

In 2005, Congress recognized the degree of threat posed by unauthorized entry into the United States and authorized the Office of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to issue waivers for any legislation that could potentially interfere with the timely and efficient completion of the security fence project currently planned to seal the borders of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas against continued illegal infiltration.

While ensuring the earliest possible completion of the fence project is certainly necessary, the requirement that the Secretary's authority to issue waivers of legislation relate to this one project alone is not. Such authority need not relate exclusively to the issue of securing physical borders. Instead of limiting the Secretary's necessary authority to the narrow purpose of completing a single component of the War on Terror, Congress must immediately recognize that the global War on Terror requires that the Homeland Security Secretary have the same authority to waive any law, constitutional provision or principle, as well as any component of the Bill of Rights that could potentially impact negatively on our efficient and timely prosecution of the War on Terror. The authority to waive laws directly in conflict with physical border security is but a minor first step in updating principles of government that reflect a simpler time when the Framers, brilliant as they may have been, could never have anticipated the grave situation currently faced by the United States in its struggle against international assailants bent on her destruction. Regrettably, the time has come to discard unreasonable deference to personal liberties and rights, both natural and man-made, in favor of more appropriate governmental authority over individuals and concepts that undermine this nation's defense against global terrorists.

Undoubtedly, outdated constitutional principles of personal liberty, "penumbras" of privacy, equal protection of law, warranted search and arrest, and free speech have served us well in their time. But the new era in which we must live is shaped and defined by the need to protect this nation from international terror through timely and efficient administration and prosecution of the War on Terror. There can be no doubt that had the Framers been capable of envisioning the circumstances in which America finds herself today, the Constitution would have authorized the powers required to protect this nation.

First and foremost, the doctrine of separation of powers handicaps the Executive Branch from maintaining the confidentiality and security of decisions during wartime as well as decisions in postwar and pre-wartime planning in connection with subsequent wars initiated, by necessity, in the timely and efficient response to the global War on Terror throughout the next decade, at least. Understood in relation to the magnitude of the threat to this nation posed by the specter of escalating international terrorism, the voluntary ceding of congressional power to the Homeland Security Secretary in 2005 was a necessary but insufficient first step in this regard. To ensure the timely and efficient prosecution of the War on Terror, we must dispense with the limitation of the Secretary's waiver authority to specific projects, such as fence-related matters, and allow the Secretary to apply it, as deemed appropriately necessary for the War on Terror by the Office of Homeland Security, to all conflicting legislation and constitutional principles in that regard. Limiting the necessary application of the Secretary's waiver to specific projects within the scope of homeland security unnecessary undermines efficient wartime, post-wartime, and pre-subsequent-wartime administrative efficiency. In effect, doing so limits the authority of the Secretary to waive laws piecemeal, such as by merely addressing environmental and conservation laws that interfere with fence construction when the real culprits interfering unduly with the War on Terror are equal rights, search and arrest by warrant requirements, free speech, and privacy notions that are incompatible with effective wartime, post-wartime, and pre-subsequent-wartime operational concerns and efficient governmental administration. Finally, we must dispense with the conceptual distinction between revoking inappropriate laws indirectly by congressional enactment of subsequent legislation and accomplishing this same essential goal directly, by authorizing the Secretary to rescind or revoke laws and constitutional principles directly by waiver. Legislation and antiquated constitutional principles that threaten to interfere with efficient wartime, post-wartime, and pre-subsequent-wartime governmental administration must be capable of timely and efficient redress, directly by the Secretary of Homeland Security rather than indirectly and inefficiently by Congress, as may have once been appropriate before the modern era of international terrorism and the vulnerability of the United States in its lead role in the global War on Terror. One can only hope that the Supreme Court will, in its pending review of the Secretary's waivers issued in 2005, dispense with spurious arguments and outdated values and redress unnecessary restrictions on essential powers necessary for the Secretary of Homeland Security to protect the nation we all hold so dear.