FISA – Feingold and Dodd Amendment Defeated – IMPEACH THE SENATE
Posted By JM Bell on July 9, 2008
Even Senator Harry Reid said NO. the final vote was 32-66. 66 cowards. 66 Oath Breaking Chickenshits. 66 Bush / Cheney appeasing, un-American, unpatriotic, whiney little fuckwits.
They obviously don’t have the depth to feel the massive ammount of shame that should accompanyhat defiles and desecrates the US Constitution. But they can’t. It’s hard to feel shame when you’re walking around, wiping your ass with the American Flag.
Great job, Hatch, Bennett, MATHESON and Bishop (you know Cannon would have voted for it if he hadn’t gotten lost in the Capital Canteen). If you wanted to live in a Soviet style Republic, you should have fucking gone to live in one.
From SALON’s Glenn Greenwald:
What we learned in December, 2005 that George Bush and the telecoms were doing — listening in on the private conversations of American citizens without warrants — is a felony under clear U.S. law, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine for each offense. Anyone can go read the section of FISA — right here — that says that as clearly as can be:
A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally — (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; . . .
An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.
It was also as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as can be. For the Government to invade our communications with no probable cause showing to a court is exactly what the Founders prohibited as clearly as the English language permitted.
But today, the Democratic-led Congress — with the support of both John McCain and Barack Obama, neither of whom will even bother to show up and vote — will cover-up those crimes. Law Professor and Fourth Amendment expert Jonathan Turley was on MSNBC’s Countdown with Rachel Maddow last night and gave as succinct an explanation for what Democrats — not the Bush administration, but Democrats — will do today. Anyone with any lingering doubts about what is taking place today in our country should watch this:
As Turley says, and as I’ve written many times over the last two weeks, what is most appalling here beyond the bill itself are the pure falsehoods being spewed to the public about what Congress is doing — and those falsehoods are largely being spewed not by Republicans. Republicans are gleefully admitting, even boasting, that this bill gives them everything Bush and Cheney wanted and more, and includes only minor changes from the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill passed last February (which Obama, seeking the Democratic Party nomination, made a point of opposing).
Rather, the insultingly false claims about this bill — it brings the FISA court back into eavesdropping! it actually improves civil liberties! Obama will now go after the telecoms criminally! Government spying and lawbreaking isn’t really that important anyway! — are being disseminated by the Democratic Congressional leadership and, most of all, by those desperate to glorify Barack Obama and justify anything and everything he does. Many of these are the same people who spent the last five years screaming that Bush was shredding the Constitution, that spying on Americans was profoundly dangerous, that the political establishment did nothing about Bush’s lawbreaking.
Read the rest HERE.
Then crawl under your desk and stay there. Welcome, my friends, to Orwell’s 1984.
Rachel Maddow is right. “It is gut-wrenching.” I think I need my woobie.
My letter to Obama. I guess I’m voting for Ron Paul after all.
==============================
Please explain the following: “The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any president or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court”. — Barack Obama
That was already the case. In fact, it’s right here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sup_01_50_10_36_20_I.html
It was a felony before FISA, and it’s a felony after FISA, so the only thing that happened today was that you excused the felony actions of the presidential office and private telecommunications industry without so much as an investigation. You granted the government and private industry “retroactive immunity” from the law.
So please explain again how this in any way supports your belief in the constitution or the rule of law.
jake
PS – I feel utterly betrayed.
1984 indeed – only 24 years later than predicted.
Sgt Jake,
I agree.
If anyone had any inkling that Obama was sincerely about “change” this should squarely disabuse them of that notion.
If there ever were a time to vote for non-Establishment candidates, like Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or Ralph Nader, the time is now.
[...] don’t know what to say here; I’m just seething. I can only defer to other, better bloggers on this [...]
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This FISA letdown may have cinched it. Finally our anger has legs on the left and the right. Pelsoi put impeachment back on the table and not a single person believes her.
But I still have to vote for Democratic leaders because I think it’s still a long road back and the other routes are impassable. However, the slightest centrist leaning red candidate could make me vote against Republican Jim Matheson.
http://patriotact.wordpress.com
I must encourage my fellow Americans to think more deeply about wiretapping. I worked for a big, fast moving wireless telecom. They, in collusion with the government have been listening forever. Most are to young to know they should not have forgotten this history.
Understand that the most valuable telecom data that is intercepted are the communications of elected officials, bank executives, etc …
If there is gold in the middle of a field, this data, then somebody is going to try and steal this golden data, any thought to the contrary is childish. That’s why we have powerful laws to protect our confidential and private communications and data.
For a political machine, blackmail is an important tool in persuading elected officials to do the bidding of those that can and do intercept communications from powerful people.
We invaded and blew up Iraq, they listen to everything, of course, they are terrified of their crimes.
This looks like all stops, all dirty laundry was whipped out. Arms were twisted and cracked.
And then Obama’s plane almost wrecks out of the sky on monday, folks ! Get a clue. Wake up.
I have to agree with the statement that there has been “illegal listening” for years. The parties involved just happened to get sloppy and finally get caught at it.
Of course, you have to look at the flip side of this and acknowledge that if our elected officials and other people in power were Honest, had Integrity and kept to a code of Ethics, saying and doing nothing illegal that could be used against them; then the telecom companies would not have had any leverage to affect the outcome of the FISA debacle.
George Orwell studied the history of the rise and fall of great nations and saw the U.S. going in the same direction. He didn’t need a degree in Rocket Science or a Crystal Ball to extrapolate what path the US would end up following.