Davis’ Wiretap Plan Smells a Lot Like Reelection Insurance

Finally, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Gov. Gray Davis, in a sure-fire plan to keep Al Qaeda terrorists at bay in California, is going to make it easier for every podunk police department to snoop into e-mail files and listen in on phone calls.

Barney Fife takes out Osama bin Laden.

That’s the legislation Davis is pushing up the hill, anyway. And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt this secure since Davis bravely stepped in front of TV cameras and warned us about unspecified threats against unspecified bridges at unspecified times.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say Al Qaeda forces are using Rancho Cucamonga as a staging center. Under the Davis model, which borrows if not steals from the federal Patriot Act signed by President Bush after Sept. 11, Cucamonga cops would theoretically bust up that cell before you could say, “Praise be to Allah.”

That’s because the police, using roving wiretaps and e-mail snooping technology, would know the suspects’ every thought.

The subjects of this surveillance may not even have to be terrorists. The legislation is still in the works, but it’s possible that you or I, if we were merely suspected of any kind of crime, could get the same treatment.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley appeared to be eagerly seconding Davis’ motion, which of course is completely unnecessary. The LAPD has for decades pioneered techniques that go far beyond those used by any other police force or standing army.

(It’s not yet clear whether you could be held indefinitely, without being charged, under the Davis plan. But if the governor’s favorability ratings drop in his coming reelection campaign, thumbscrews and firing squads are possibilities, depending on how they poll).

Some critics are calling this another surrender of civil liberties, and others are wondering if we wouldn’t be better off leaving terrorism to the FBI rather than the likes of Rancho Cucamonga police (no disrespect intended).

USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky was in Sacramento on Tuesday, telling the Assembly Judiciary Committee it would be a big mistake to copy a federal Patriot Act that was instituted without a single congressional hearing.

Roving wiretaps, he said, constitute “a substantial intrusion on privacy. . . . If there were a roving wiretap against Erwin Chemerinsky, they could tap every phone in the building where I work. I’m boring, but still, I have conversations I wouldn’t want others listening to.”

Don’t we all.

“Is this even necessary?” Chemerinsky asks. “You can’t do roving wiretaps until you’ve got probable cause, and once you’re there, that’s the point at which I would hope the FBI would be involved.”

What we need to keep in mind, of course, is that Gov. Davis is running for reelection. If it made political sense to put a fence around Marin County until we’re certain there are no more American Taliban hiding in the redwoods, Davis would be on television with the announcement.

It’s not important that the wiretap legislation make any sense or have any chance of passage. Davis is in a fight to save his career, and he would much rather be pitching unnecessary law-and-order proposals than discussing, say, energy, education or the state’s plummeting fortunes.

“This is one of the governor’s first steps in using his strong-on-crime record as a selling point,” says USC political science teacher Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. “Every candidate wants to be Rudy Giuliani right now. Tough, protective and concerned about citizen safety.”

We all know that in an election year, Democrats try desperately to look more Republican, and Republicans do their best impressions of Democrats. (Dick Riordan’s great advantage is that he doesn’t even have to fake it. The guy can’t figure out what he is).

Certainly you’ll recall candidate Bush and his campaign to reinvent the GOP as the sensitive, hands-across-America party of inclusion. At one point during the convention in Philadelphia, the stage looked like the set of “In Living Color.”

Then, once elected, Bush appointed a right-wing attorney general who had helped submarine a black judicial candidate, considers dancing a sin and gives thumbs up to tribunals.

But let’s get back to Davis, the human ATM machine who raised $1 million a month for three years, thinking a pile of cash would make him untouchable. And now, through a combination of bad luck and worse decisions, he finds himself sinking.

On finances, the state now projects a $12-billion budget deficit.

On education, he touts improved test scores, but public education is a rote drill in which students are trained to take standardized tests for the sake of certain political careers.

On energy, Davis locked us into long-term contracts that make no sense.

What to do?

Secure the bridges. Saddle up the posse.

The enemy is closer than you think.

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Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.