U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., executed an exceptionally bold political move last week when he called for Congress to censure President Bush over the warrantless domestic spying program the White House has engaged in for more than four years.

A presidential censure amounts to a public condemnation of the commander in chief. It is a way for Congress to display its distaste for acts of dubious legality. There are no legal ramifications, although it certainly creates a fair amount of presidential embarrassment.

The spying program President Bush has been authorizing since 2002 amounts to one of the most blatant and horrific constitutional violations since the Federalists attempted to silence opposition via the Sedition Act in 1798.

Congress gave President Bush an unprecedented level of power, control and secrecy after Sept. 11, 2001 in order to protect the country. But apparently the Patriot Act did not go far enough for this administration's taste, as Mr. Bush has deemed the courts an unnecessary roadblock to security.

The notion that there need not be any check of governmental power opens the door for the state to spy on virtually anyone it wants, even those who truly pose no threat to the government. After it was revealed that the intelligence community spied on civil rights groups and war protestors in the 1960s and '70s, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, which specifically required search warrants for wiretaps in national security cases, according to The New York Times.

The funny thing in this whole situation is that there would be little controversy if Mr. Bush simply went through the courts and obtained a warrant. Mr. Bush has the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court at his disposal, which grants virtually all the requests for a warrant in a matter of hours. It is difficult to fathom how going through this process could possibly interfere with keeping America safe.

Many Republican senators joined their Democratic counterparts in condemning the spying program and promised an exhaustive investigation after the nation realized the extent that our government violated our civil liberties.

And yet somehow these promises never reached fruition.

The first hint that Republicans were losing their chutzpah and succumbing to party leaders came when Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., decided Attorney General Alberto Gonzales need not testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, despite Mr. Gonzales' pledge to do so. Republicans certainly didn't want another Oliver North on their hands, so when Mr. Gonzales visited the committee he was under no legal obligation to speak the truth.

Shortly thereafter the Senate Intelligence Committee decided against looking into the constitutionality of domestic spying, claiming any investigation would only serve to damage the program. And later in February the White House rejected a proposal for a special counsel to investigate the program.

Apparently dissatisfied with merely suppressing an investigation, the White House has taken a play from Dick Nixon's playbook and promised to come down hard on anyone caught leaking classified material. That's right — the administration that is under investigation for leaking a CIA officer's name to a reporter as a form of political retribution is now fanatically purging federal employees suspected of talking to the press.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., echoed the administration's attempt to quell dissent when he appeared on ABC's "This Week" shortly after Mr. Feingold announced his censure proposal.

"The signal that it sends that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief, who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that we know is making our homeland safer, is wrong," he said.

Mr. Frist trivialized the notion of free speech in a democracy when he suggested to "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos that any criticism of a president during wartime only serves to motivate the enemy and weaken support for the War on Terror. The right to criticize one's government is among the freedoms that makes America such a wonderful country. A nation inevitably moves away from democratic ideals when it only permits speech praising the government. And yet unfortunately Mr. Frist apparently wants to turn back the clock 200 years or so and suppress any minority views.

However, it turns out those advocating censure are not merely the fringe faction of the Democratic Party. In fact, Mr. Feingold's proposal is quite popular. According to a poll conducted by the American Research Group earlier this month, 46 percent of Americans want to see President Bush censured for the spying program while 44 percent do not.

The nation today is faced with a public that wants to censure the president but a government increasingly adverse to any form of public investigation.

In proposing the censure, Sen. Feingold is not attempting to undermine presidential authority or kick Mr. Bush out of office by proposing impeachment. He is merely attempting to hold the administration accountable for a gross abuse of governmental power.

Rob Hunger ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science.