That Ted Rall, he’s such a kidder.
Oh. Wait.
It appears he’s not, and we’re really in that retroactive legalization period.
From the NYT, last week:
Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration’s domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.
More enlightening is this bit later on:
The agreement would reinforce the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 to issue special warrants for spying but was sidestepped by the administration. The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the court whenever possible.
If the administration elects not to do so after 45 days, the attorney general must certify that the surveillance is necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittee why the administration has not sought a warrant. The attorney general would be required to give an update to the subcommittee every 45 days.
Democrats called the deal an abdication of the special bipartisan committee’s role as a watchdog, saying the Republicans had in effect blessed the program before learning how it worked or what it entailed.
For “was sidestepped by the administration” you can read “Bush administration breaks the law again”. You have to learn how to translate Major Media into English.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the bill being introduced to do this retroactive legalization actually contains provisions making it a crime to report on this kind of illegal activity by the government. Wow, that’s ballsy evil even for the Bushies.
Glenn Greenwald has lots of commentary on the bill and these provisions, expanding on the original article about it at Editor & Publisher.
He hits it dead on here:
The Administration self-evidently intends to use the criminal law to prevent further revelations of their illegal behavior, whether the disclosures come from ordinary citizens, government whistle-blowers or investigative journalists. They want anyone who is considering disclosing government wrongdoing to fear the prospects of criminal prosecution so that they remain silent.
Pretty well the only person who’s got my respect for their handling of this whole NSA domestic spying issue is Russ Feingold. No surprise here–he’s been on my Good Guy list since he was the only senator who bucked the crazy wave and stood up for civil liberties against the original passage of the PARTIOT act.
Well, now Feingold is apparently the only senator willing to stand up to and point out that the Emporer has no clothes… or rather that the Emporer is breaking the law.
You can get the scoop over at CNN:
Sen. Russ Feingold introduced a resolution Monday to censure President Bush for authorizing a no-warrant domestic surveillance program, accusing Bush of breaking the law and misleading Congress about it.
“When the president of the United States breaks the law, he must be held accountable,” the Wisconsin Democrat told the Senate.
Feingold sounds like someone who actually understands the ideas of checks and balances:
Administration officials have said the program, run by the National Security Agency, is necessary to battle terrorists, and that its disclosure in December damaged national security.
But Feingold said the administration’s case “would be laughable if this issue were not so serious.”
“The founders anticipated abuses of executive power by creating a balance of powers in the Constitution,” he said. “Supporting and defending the Constitution, as we have taken an oath to do, require us to preserve that balance, and to have the will to act.”
The reactions from the Republicans are directly from the playbook: the old “you can’t criticize us, we’re at war” thing, and the “if you do this, then the terrorists win” song. Hell, Frist nearly says it word for word:
Frist, a Tennessee Republican, called the measure “a political stunt that is addressed at attacking the president of the United States of America when we’re at war.”
He criticized Feingold for introducing the censure resolution “at the same time we have terrorists right now intending to attack Western civilization and the people of our homeland.”
Feingold (probably futilely, tries to point out what they’re doing):
“Even Republican senators have said this is not within the law,” he said, referring to the wiretapping program. “But the intimidation campaign of calling people names makes people apparently afraid of saying exactly what the law is and stand up for the Constitution.”
Man, I’d love to see the Democratic Party machinery shunted aside and have Dean-Feingold run in 2008.
It’s not likely though, since the reaction of the majority of Democrats to Feingold’s stand was to run for cover, out of fear of “alienating swing voters”. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could actually decide to stand for something?
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