Someone Finally Called Bullshit
Yesterday I complained about the Washington Post completely missing the point on what was wrong with the regime's illegal warrantless spying on Americans (scroll down to "Looking For Ways..."). Today, the NY Times gave me a glimmer of hope that someone was paying attention to what is so terribly wrong with that NSA program in a very direct (and somewhat snarky) editorial.
Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up?
For more than a year, Mr. Roberts has been dragging out an investigation into why Mr. Bush presented old, dubious and just plain wrong intelligence on Iraq as solid new proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda. It was supposed to start after the 2004 election, but Mr. Roberts was letting it die of neglect until the Democrats protested by forcing the Senate into an unusual closed session last November.
Now Mr. Roberts is trying to stop an investigation into Mr. Bush's decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without getting the warrants required by a 27-year-old federal law enacted to stop that sort of abuse.
...Mr. Roberts said the White House had agreed to provide more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee — hardly an enormous concession since it is already required to do so. And he said he and the White House were working out "a fix" for the law. That is the worst news. FISA was written to prevent the president from violating Americans' constitutional rights. It was amended after 9/11 to make it even easier for the administration to do legally what it is now doing.
FISA does not in any way prevent Mr. Bush from spying on Qaeda members or other terrorists. The last thing the nation needs is to amend the law to institutionalize the imperial powers Mr. Bush seized after 9/11. [Emphasis added]
The Democrats have just been handed the language and the cover for raising all sorts of hell over this shocking display of party over country. While they are the minority, forty-two of the forty-five of them can stop by filibuster any legislation which grants the Resident even more imperial powers, if they will just stick together. And, by pointing out what is so dreadfully wrong with the NSA program and the way it is being used, the Democrats might actually gain some respect from the electorate during an election year.
Time to hit the phones again, my friends.
Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up?
For more than a year, Mr. Roberts has been dragging out an investigation into why Mr. Bush presented old, dubious and just plain wrong intelligence on Iraq as solid new proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda. It was supposed to start after the 2004 election, but Mr. Roberts was letting it die of neglect until the Democrats protested by forcing the Senate into an unusual closed session last November.
Now Mr. Roberts is trying to stop an investigation into Mr. Bush's decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without getting the warrants required by a 27-year-old federal law enacted to stop that sort of abuse.
...Mr. Roberts said the White House had agreed to provide more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee — hardly an enormous concession since it is already required to do so. And he said he and the White House were working out "a fix" for the law. That is the worst news. FISA was written to prevent the president from violating Americans' constitutional rights. It was amended after 9/11 to make it even easier for the administration to do legally what it is now doing.
FISA does not in any way prevent Mr. Bush from spying on Qaeda members or other terrorists. The last thing the nation needs is to amend the law to institutionalize the imperial powers Mr. Bush seized after 9/11. [Emphasis added]
The Democrats have just been handed the language and the cover for raising all sorts of hell over this shocking display of party over country. While they are the minority, forty-two of the forty-five of them can stop by filibuster any legislation which grants the Resident even more imperial powers, if they will just stick together. And, by pointing out what is so dreadfully wrong with the NSA program and the way it is being used, the Democrats might actually gain some respect from the electorate during an election year.
Time to hit the phones again, my friends.
posted by Diane at 4:14 AM
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