Wednesday, May 24, 2006
The End of the 4th Amendment
So in the New Age, in this War on Terra that requires us all to scale back our constitutional rights and simply forget about our constitutionally-guaranteed right to privacy, our congress is exempt from sharing in our sacrifice.
Hypocrites. Every single last Democrat and Republican who protested the FBI raid on William Jefferson’ s office but who have uttered nary a peep of protest over the NSA’s programs should be ashamed.
Jefferson’s office was raided because he took a bribe. He was caught on tape taking a bribe. The FBI searched his home and found $90,000 wrapped in tin foil and stashed his freezer. The FBI got a warrant and raided his office.
But just listen to Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert suddenly discover that, all of a sudden, privacy rights are at risk. It’s amazing how incumbents are not really concerned with oversight or privacy until the FBI comes knocking on their door. When the NSA, without bothering to get warrants, rips open our international communications we can just suck it up and deal with it, according to republicans and some democrats. When the ivory tower is threatened, look out: something must be done.
I would love to know what arcane statute was stepped on when the FBI raided a corrupt congressman’s office with a warrant. I would love to know what technicality was ignored that is suddenly so important.
This protest stinks, to be frank. It makes me wonder what congress has to hide. Incumbents are calling for return of Jefferson’s papers. Hmmm…got something to hide, congress? What’s in those papers that’s so important?
As an aside, hat tip to Nancy Pelosi for recently breaking the 16-month deadlock in the House Ethics committee by helping start ethic investigations again. Dennis Hastert has called for no investigations, to date.
Of course, the Senate Judiciary Committee had no problem in forwarding Gen. Hayden’s nomination to be director of the CIA to the senate. That’s great. Confirm the guy who ran the most blatantly illegal operation in US history to be the director of the CIA. Just institutionalize lawlessness. That will make it all better. I’m sure that Hayden, once he is in charge of the CIA, will show the same concern for the law he’s shown in the past. I’m sure that, once he’s in charge of an agency that actually has covert operatives and commandoes, things will actually get better over there at the CIA.
Hat tip to Bush for having the incredible audacity to nominate the guy who ran his blatantly illegal spy program to be the new head of the CIA. Bush doesn’t just break the law: he refuses to stop once caught and then rubs it your face a little by nominating the same crooks to run even more important government agencies.
Why stop now, Mr. President? Ask for Rice’s resignation and then nominate Elliott Abrams to be the new Secretary of State. Replace Abrams with Oliver North. Who’s going to stop you? Not democrats, to be sure.
Speaking of investigations, the FCC, following the Justice Department, has announced it cannot investigate the NSA’s domestic program because it can’t obtain classified material.
As of right now there is no check whatsoever on the power of the NSA. Republicans have blocked an investigation and refuse to hold the Executive Branch responsible for lawbreaking. The Justice Department can’t investigate because the program is classified. The FCC can’t investigate because the program is classified. Lawsuits are being slapped down through the use of the state secrets statute regarding the CIA’s abuses and the Executive Branch is attempting to use the same statute to slap down the lawsuits regarding the NSA’s programs.
Rep. Conyers has an ominous article over a The Huffington Post. He references Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article that alleges that the NSA actually gets a live feed that taps into all of the domestic calls passing through the carrier and that it eavesdrops on many of those domestic communications without warrants or court orders. A “former senior intelligence official” and a “security consultant” for the “major telecommunications carrier” provided the information to Hersh.
I normally don’t comment on allegations in isolated press stories, but Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who broke the detainee abuse scandal. This latest story is extraordinary. As the New York Times taught us, the first word of the abuses of this administration routinely comes to us from the press, not from the non-existent oversight committees in congress.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 4:10 PM 
