DANIEL SCHORR: Fighting words - waterboarding, illegal immigration, immunity. These are cold words for deep struggles as America tries to come to terms with a situation after 9/11.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: NPR's senior news analyst Daniel Schorr.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: First: waterboarding.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: This is a coercive interrogation technique that simulates drowning. The confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general ran into trouble for a while because he would not say whether he considers waterboarding to be torture, and therefore illegal. He couldn't respond to questions about waterboarding without exposing Bush administration policies that the White House is embarrassed to reveal.</s>Second: illegal immigrants. They have outrage some American who are determined to keep them in the shadows pending deportation. The president himself hasn't been able to help very much. He couldn't constrain the more rabid member of his party from provoking ugly anti-immigrants sentiments during the recent effort at immigration reform.</s>Second: And so in the Democratic debate last Tuesday, Hillary Clinton found herself on the horns of a dilemma, whether illegal immigrants should have driver's licenses. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer believes that requiring license examinations might help to reduce traffic accidents. In an earlier newspaper interview, Mrs. Clinton has said the proposal made a lot of sense. But then during the debate, she bit her tongue as she realized that it would antagonize the anti-illegal immigrant crowd.</s>And finally: the issue of immunity. President Bush is seeking immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with his warrantless surveillance program. These companies now a-face multiple privacy suits and they are demanding protection. The administration is trying to get Congress to enact retroactive immunity for them, never mind whether such a thing is constitutional.</s>And finally: All of these issues - waterboarding, illegal immigration, immunity - reflect a government under stress, a government willing to take liberties with, well, liberties.</s>And finally: This is Daniel Schorr.
The issue of waterboarding threatens the attorney general nomination. NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr discusses the torture technique, as well as illegal immigration and immunity.