Just Say NO!
They really are going to give the telecoms and Hedgemony a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card according to CNN: Deal clears way for wiretap-law overhaul
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A bipartisan deal that clears the way for a sweeping overhaul of domestic wiretapping laws will let telecommunications companies escape lawsuits over the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program, congressional leaders announced Thursday.
The measure could be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives as early as Friday.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said the bill is “not perfect” but “strikes a sound balance” between intelligence-gathering and court oversight.
Democrats have managed to kill previous efforts in Congress to revise the Watergate-era law governing domestic spying.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the bill would prevent administration officials from conducting any new warrantless surveillance.
However, the plan drew immediate criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which said it would effectively gut court oversight of domestic spying.
Caroline Fredrickson, the head of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office, said the bill “allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans’ communications.”
It was a waste of time, money, and effort working for the Democrats, they are no different than the Republicans. Anyone who votes for this is not your friend. This bill removes accountability from the table.
This law violates the Fourth Amendment and allows criminals to escape punishment.
We need to track the vote to find out who the Stalinists are.
7 comments
NO!
So far, Patrick Leahy is the only one complaining. I would like to see a little more participation opposing this sell-out.
Russ Feingold is complaining.
This is not what I intended when I voted straight Democratic for most of two decades. If this passes as it stands, the Democratic Party can forget about my active support.
See Glenn Greenwald for a couple more truly horrifying details about this bill. Example: the AG can not merely order the courts to dismiss a lawsuit against the telecoms; he can force them to do so in virtually complete secrecy as to reasons, documents, etc. … secrecy not only from public view, but also from plaintiffs’ attorneys.
That rumbling is not a distant earthquake; it is our Founders turning in their graves.
in exchange for selling out, we got flood relief in the midwest and more money for returning veterans to get college degrees, all tacked onto the we don’t need no steenkin withdrawal timelines war funding bill.
what democrat was going to risk their chances of re-election by not doing whatever it took to get those funded?
i was reading some essays earlier about how leftists are their own worst enemies for being such purists and demanding unreasonable purity from politicians whose job after all is to make deals with the opposing side. ’tis true, to some extent, but at what point do you draw the line? i’d have said further left than this, even at my most pragmatic of moments.
not to mention that the democrats have also changed their refrain from the republicans made us do it! to yeah, we showed them, they can’t keep us from passing our domestic agenda!.
i don’t remember where i read it, but pelosi [i think it was her] actually said something to that effect, that all this bargaining showed that the democrats had stood up to the white house and to congressional republicans on important domestic issues.
are they that stupid that they believe that, or do they just think we’re stupid enough to believe it?
This is not compromising; this is caving.
You don’t gut the Fourth Amendment to score points.
I’m hoping there are still 41 Americans left in the Senate to stop this thing, because Hoyer and Pelosi have surrendered the House.
No point in me commenting. You know what I think of the Dem’s. This just continues to prove the point, a point I made some years ago.
All the apparent differences between the Democrats and the Republicans are superficial at best. They are all selfish, thieves, liars and cowards. One difference is that the Republicans show their cowardice by being bully’s, and the Democrats by cowering and doing nothing in the hope it just goes away. Or to put it another way, the GOP are predators, they Dem’s are prey. 🙂
Nice choice you have in the coming election. Good luck with that.
At this point they are pushing me towards Bob Barr if I want a Constitution.