More FISA Woes…
Remember when the Democrats said they were going to hold up the Iraq budget until the President agreed to timetables for withdrawal, then they got elected and caved into everything the Bush administration demanded, but called it a "compromise"? Well, something similar is occurring once again.
The Bush administration has been illegally wiretapping American citizens and major U.S. telecom companies have been complicit in this, giving the government the access it needed to do the illegal spying. Congress has before it a FISA bill which will retroactively grant immunity for all illegal wiretapping done in the past, and permit wiretapping without a judge issuing a warrant going forward. This bill has been shelved a number of times because public outrage was just enough to convince congress they shouldn't pass it — but they're really anxious to pass this bill, perhaps in part to grant immunity to those among themselves who were involved in allowing the President to continue his illegal wiretap program.
There are some in congress who are against it — and those who are, are against it passionately and with good reason because it completely flouts the 4th Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.
The Democrats in congress have done no better than the Republicans since getting elected, capitulating to the demands of this administration on issue after issue. Stand up and make noise, because we can't let our 4th Amendment rights be one of those issues that Democrats cave in on.
A word on FISA law: Originally the law contained a provision that no warrant was needed to begin a wiretap in an emergency so long as a judge signed a warrant within 7 days. This point was blatantly ignored by Bush when he discussed this issue, and he made it sound as if someone would have to go around knocking on doors late at night begging for a judge to sign a warrant just so they could fight al-qaeda. That was never the case, but his intellectual dishonesty won him changes to FISA law.
Now the FISA court has over a 99% wiretap approval rating. You can barely put a warrant on the desk without it getting signed — but that wasn't enough for the Bush administration either. They don't see why warrants should even be necessary — and they aren't if the administration is wiretapping phone calls between foreign nationals and other foreign nationals, but the problem is they are wiretapping phone calls between U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, but insisting those U.S. citizens aren't having their 4th amendment rights infringed because there is a foreign national on the phone.
If that argument doesn't seem to hold much water, don't worry because they'll move quickly into full scare mode and try to convince you that in a time of war it's silly and downright dangerous to the nation to worry about people's rights — that if you're not doing anything wrong then you've got nothing to worry about. Don't let them push this load of garbage on you. Those rights are there to protect you against exactly what the Bush administration is doing: going on fishing trips, looking for an excuse to claim someone is doing something wrong.
…and then, if they had one more vote on the Supreme Court, they'd throw that person in an overseas prison and he or she would never be granted to opportunity to stand before judge and force the government to prove it had a good reason to hold you.
Essentially, this administration is turning our government into Big Brother, they're watching, they're making themselves judge, jury and perhaps executioner and worst of all, many Democrats are going along with it. Make yourself heard and stop this.
