By now, we all know the stories about the 4th Amendment abuses perpetrated by the Moron/Psycho administration. The bad news is: it appears it's going to keep going. As you may know, government wiretaps are overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), who have to grant warrants and generally justify any secret eavesdropping. There is an amendment being debated right now that:
1. Expands the president's wiretapping authority
2. Allows the government to use "Exigent Circumstances" to bypass the authorization process.
3. Allows the government to CONTINUE surveillance denied by the court throughout the appeals process and then keep and use everything they gather even if they lose.
4. Grant all the telecoms immunity for their complicity in all illegal wiretaps to this point, without revealing who was tapped and for how long.
This basically turns the 4th Amendment into toilet paper, IMHO.
And guess who announced his support for the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer bill? Mr. Yes-We-Can! That's right, Barack Obama has inexplicably signed on, calling it a "compromise", and saying that he's against the immunity part, but he'll still sign the bill - presumably so we can move forward without the Republicans being able to say that he's soft on terrorism.
Wait a second....wasn't that essentially the mindset that got us into the war? Isn't he supposed to be the guy who speaks truth to power? BOOOOO! I know, the important thing is that he gets elected, and I'm down with that, but this is exactly the sort of bullshit that people pilloried the Clintons for. And with good fucking reason! Wonder if he's accepting any telecom money now that he also changed his mind about the importance of public financing? Naw.....
Senators Dodd, Feingold, Boxer, and Leahy - among others - are fighting right now to at least filibuster enough to get a vote delayed until after the Senate recess. Sometimes some inertia is enough to kill something this craven. It's hard to justify to your constituency why you think the gumment should be able to listen to your phone calls whenever they feel like it....
Here's a list of what the ACLU objects to. I know, it seems boring, but seriously - read it, know what you're talking about, and then tell everyone who will listen. You know what kills shit like this? People knowing about it. You say "FISA amendment", people's eyes glaze over. You say "How would you like the CIA to be able to listen to any phone conversation in the US with no supervision?", they pay attention.
2 comments:
Davey, er Alvy is right ...
This post here is another good summary of the what is probably known about the program, and why it shouldn't be approved:
"For all practical purposes, then, the decision about which U.S. citizens to spy on is being vested in a small group of technicians operating in secret and creating criteria that virtually no one else understands."
If that doesn't seem suspicious to you, read the whole thing and it will.
I had a response, but after more research, it turns out he fucked us after all.
Sadly, he has descended to the level of careerist, like all the rest. SO disappointing.
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