One Utah

From Arianna Huffington:

It was another trying week for those of us who prefer our Democrats with vertebrae. Terrified that a terrorist attack that the GOP could pin on them might happen over the Congressional recess, Senate and House Democrats approved a White House-crafted bill expanding the president’s ability to eavesdrop without a court order. … But hey, the president still needs to get prior approval from two people. One of them is Alberto Gonzales. Feel better now?

Unbelievably, on Saturday 41 House Democrats voted to in effect suspend the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for at least six months, just so they could go on vacation. Rep. Jim Matheson was one of them. In the Senate, 16 Democrats voted for this. Don’t they know the Republicans will accuse them of being “soft on terror” anyway?

Democrats “have a Pavlovian reaction: Whenever the president says the word ‘terrorism,’ they roll over and play dead,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

UPDATE: A little bit of background may help explain just how dysfunctional Congress has gotten. Earlier this year, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) judge secretly ruled that part of the Bush administration’s program of illegal warrantless surveillance was, well, illegal. You see, intercepting phone calls and e-mails without a warrant within the borders of the United States violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, contained in the Bill of Rights.

George W. Bush famously regards the Constitution as nothing but “a goddamned piece of paper,” so naturally he demanded that Congress circumvent the FISA court decision. Congressional leaders didn’t act fast enough, which is why we’ve been getting a drumbeat of terror warnings from the Bushies for weeks. Finally, last Tuesday on Fox News, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) (pron. “boner”) revealed the existence of the FISA ruling, until then one of the most closely guarded secrets of US intelligence operations. Imagine if a Democrat had done that!

Boehner’s leak did put enough pressure on Congress to get the dirty deed done. I’m not excusing our senators and representatives, they caved. Probably Boehner will get a Presidential Medal of Freedom for revealing classified information on TV.

UPDATE: Perhaps eager to resume violating the Constitution, President Bush signed his new spying powers into law on Sunday. In his signing statement, Bush demanded immunity for everyone involved in the illegal surveillance program, including the telecom companies that allowed the NSA access to their routers:

When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin blogs:

Apparently “allegedly helped us stay safe” is Bush Administration code for telecom companies and government officials who participated in a conspiracy to perform illegal surveillance. Because what they did is illegal, we do not admit that they actually did it, we only say that they are alleged to have done it.

UPDATE: This morning’s Washington Post had a scathing editorial rebuking Congress for passing what amounts to another USA PATRIOT Act.

To call this legislation ill-considered is to give it too much credit: It was scarcely considered at all. Instead, it was strong-armed through both chambers by an administration that seized the opportunity to write its warrantless wiretapping program into law — or, more precisely, to write it out from under any real legal restrictions.

UPDATE: Talking Points Memo has more about the so-called “Protect America Act” (PDF). If the title were truthful, it would be the “Suspend the Bill of Rights Act.”

It’s a fairly safe bet, judging by the amount of expert disagreement about the act’s provisions, that most members of Congress don’t know what they’ve just passed.

UPDATE: Slate’s Patrick Radden Keefe points out that the Democrats had a perfectly reasonable bill on offer, but Bush held out for, and got, legislation that frees him from accountability. It’s as if he were caught speeding and Congress offered to solve the problem by raising the speed limit; but Bush insisted on abolishing speed limits entirely. “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is now dead, and it’s never coming back.”

LAST UPDATE: Pat Bagley’s cartoon in Tuesday’s Salt Lake Tribune says it all.

This entry was posted Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Civil liberties Infringement, JIm Matheson, National Politics, The Constitution, Wiretapping. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.