According to some "talking heads" (http://www.bigeddieradio.com/), members of Congress don't want to start the impeachment process because it will affect their chances for election or re-election in 2008. So we play political volleyball and every time Bush lobs one over, everyone stands and watches.
If you haven't read The Assault on Reason yet, check out the chapter on National Insecurity, page 178 (Gore, Penguin Group, 2007). "When leaders are not held accountable for serious mistakes, they and their successors are more likely to repeat those mistakes." We know that the Bush Administration has been illegally wiretapping US Citizens (see http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200602/021506b.html). We also know that this wiretapping has been upheld by an appeals court (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/washington/06cnd-nsa.html?ex=1185595200&en=0f0fd73f953e5b2d&ei=5070), it still raises issues--even among the judges who narrowly allowed it. As the report mentions, how can you show concrete injury from a highly classified program? More appeals are in place, but the key question is why does the executive branch of the government need to break the law in the first place? That begs the next question: what else have they done illegally?
Why should you care if the government listens to your phone conversations? Because you should ask yourself, "What if they haul me to jail for something I didn't do?" Never happens in our mistake-free world, right? Where's the paper trail? What protections do you have against someone deciding they just don't like you? If there's no warrant, there's no paper trail for you to use in your defense. And the government can hold you in jail for as long as it wants without filing charges, allowing you a call to your lawyer, etc.
So, maybe we should make our representatives accountable to the law just like the average citizen.
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