*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
House Approves Unconstitutional Surveillance Legislation (from the ACLU website)The following may be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office:
"It’s Christmas morning at the White House thanks to this vote. The House just wrapped up some expensive gifts for the administration and their buddies at the phone companies. Watching the House fall to scare tactics and political maneuvering is especially infuriating given the way it stood up to pressure from the president on this same issue just months ago. In March we thought the House leadership had finally grown a backbone by rejecting the Senate’s FISA bill. Now we know they will not stand up for the Constitution.
"No matter how often the opposition calls this bill a ‘compromise,’ it is not a meaningful compromise, except of our constitutional rights. The bill allows for mass, untargeted and unwarranted surveillance of all communications coming in to and out of the United States. The courts’ role is superficial at best, as the government can continue spying on our communications even after the FISA court has objected. Democratic leaders turned what should have been an easy FISA fix into the wholesale giveaway of our Fourth Amendment rights.
Been too busy (and too filled with mindless rage, part of which caused me to stay up too late last night) to write about this myself. I just can't fathom why this is going through when it looked like the House was going to hold the line earlier this year. And, unlike the equally reprehensible Military Commissions Act of 2006, key parts of which were found unconstitutional just last week, there's no way the more egregious parts of this bill can ever make it to the Supreme Court because of a pesky little thing called standing.
This is the most fucking outrageous thing I've seen yet--and there's been a lot. But a bunch of legal loop-de-loops to allow the courts to dismiss any consideration of the legality of past actions simply by Georgie secretly handing the judge a note that says "I sez iz Legul" (maybe spelled worse) is stunningly anti-American and unconstitutional. We live in a corporatocracy now. Which is somewhat indistinguishable from fascism.
The next time I have a chance to buttonhole one of my elected representatives I'm going to ask him if he can fix speeding tickets, too, since that's what Congress seems to be in the business of now. (At least my Congressman voted against it.)
Supposedly, Sen. Obama's advisors are still trying to formulate a position. I know where Sen. Dodd stands, so if the two of them can't put Sens. Reid and Lieberman in a hammerlock and block this damn thing, I...I don't know what I'm going to do. That's legal, that is.
"It’s Christmas morning at the White House thanks to this vote. The House just wrapped up some expensive gifts for the administration and their buddies at the phone companies. Watching the House fall to scare tactics and political maneuvering is especially infuriating given the way it stood up to pressure from the president on this same issue just months ago. In March we thought the House leadership had finally grown a backbone by rejecting the Senate’s FISA bill. Now we know they will not stand up for the Constitution.
"No matter how often the opposition calls this bill a ‘compromise,’ it is not a meaningful compromise, except of our constitutional rights. The bill allows for mass, untargeted and unwarranted surveillance of all communications coming in to and out of the United States. The courts’ role is superficial at best, as the government can continue spying on our communications even after the FISA court has objected. Democratic leaders turned what should have been an easy FISA fix into the wholesale giveaway of our Fourth Amendment rights.
Been too busy (and too filled with mindless rage, part of which caused me to stay up too late last night) to write about this myself. I just can't fathom why this is going through when it looked like the House was going to hold the line earlier this year. And, unlike the equally reprehensible Military Commissions Act of 2006, key parts of which were found unconstitutional just last week, there's no way the more egregious parts of this bill can ever make it to the Supreme Court because of a pesky little thing called standing.
This is the most fucking outrageous thing I've seen yet--and there's been a lot. But a bunch of legal loop-de-loops to allow the courts to dismiss any consideration of the legality of past actions simply by Georgie secretly handing the judge a note that says "I sez iz Legul" (maybe spelled worse) is stunningly anti-American and unconstitutional. We live in a corporatocracy now. Which is somewhat indistinguishable from fascism.
The next time I have a chance to buttonhole one of my elected representatives I'm going to ask him if he can fix speeding tickets, too, since that's what Congress seems to be in the business of now. (At least my Congressman voted against it.)
Supposedly, Sen. Obama's advisors are still trying to formulate a position. I know where Sen. Dodd stands, so if the two of them can't put Sens. Reid and Lieberman in a hammerlock and block this damn thing, I...I don't know what I'm going to do. That's legal, that is.