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The purpose of this study is to examine the rhetorical efforts of President
George W. Bush in defending his administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
Specifically, the study attempts to determine the president's underlying motives
when he defended the National Security Agency in a December 2005 radio address
by applying Kenneth Burke's dramatistic method of pentadic analysis. Shortly after
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the president authorized the NSA to
intercept communication between people inside the United States and suspected
terrorists abroad without a court order, despite a 1978 law making warrantless
wiretapping of U.S. persons a felony. The study includes a brief history of
wiretapping in the United States and security policies adopted by the country both
before and after the president's speech. In applying Burke's pentad, the study reveals
that President Bush's efforts were intended to shift criticism onto other agents and to
argue that legal barriers to presidential power are dangerous luxuries in a time of
war. The study concludes that the president's aims, as revealed through rhetorical
criticism, pose a threat to long-standing democratic norms such as the rule of law. |
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