Shreddding the Constitution (Or How the Terrorists Won)

(With thanks to Scarecrow at Firedog Lake and Keith Olbermann)

The U.S. Senate, by a vote of 68-29, ratified Bush's huge illegal spy program and gave immunity to the telecoms who have invaded the privacy of millions of innocent Americans.

Note carefully: Every single Republican Senator, so-called Independent Joe Lieberman, and 18 no-good Democrats voted in favor of this travesty. Here are the names of the Democrats. It would be wise to remember their cowardice and their willingness to shred the Constitution when they come up for re-election:

Bahy, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln.

In concert, these clowns essentially voted to destroy the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads like this:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Here's how it will be done:

"The president can direct US spy agencies to intercept every e-mail, telephone or internet communication of every American and anyone legally in the US with only the most minimal safeguards ... [notice 'every American']

"Acting without individual or particularized warrants from any courts, spy agencies can sweep up millions of communications without differentiating between those warranting surveillance and those not. Procedures for separating out totally innocent persons or communications that have nothing to do with foreign intelligence or any security threat to the US are minimal to non-existent ...

"Persons spied upon have no ability to determine what information the government has collected, or to affect what the government does with the information ...

"Telecommunication companies who participated in government's illegal spying activities, and those who ordered this, would be forever immune from any consequences for their actions and cannot be required to disclose what they did ...

" ... the Senate rejected an effort to make the bill the exclusive means by which surveillance can be authorized. So the President arguably can conduct further spying on Americans even without the minimal protections left in the Bill.

"About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies by people who claim those companies broke wiretapping and privacy laws. This bill negates those lawsuits."

Timothy Lee, writing at Slate.com, says that "The issue isn't whether Congress should block cooperation between telecom companies and the government when the National Security Agency wants to engage in eavesdropping on American soil. The debate is about whether that cooperation should be subject to judicial oversight, as the law has required for the last 30 years, or whether instead the telecom companies can simply ignore the law when the president asks them to ...

"Accepting this argument, as the Senate did ..., undermines the fundamental purpose of the warrant process, which is to ensure independent review of domestic spying activities. And the law was quite clear on this point. FISA makes it a criminal offense to 'engage in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute.'"

What this means was put very well by Christy Hardin Smith: " ... we are facing a crisis of leadership and character from the people we elect to be leaders. The Republican party is more interested in protecting the Bush Presidency from scrutiny, and thus, it's own party from factually sustained criticism than standing up for the rule of law. The Democratic party does not have enough members with stiff enough spines to withstand the GOP screechfest that would follow any factual assault on the Bush/Cheney illegal overreaches on legal and ethical grounds ...

"What we need are more people in Congress who put the rule of law ahead of their own political careers and their party interests, who are willing to stand up for what is right instead of what appears to be politically expedient in the moment ..."

Hillary Clinton, unfortunately, could not seem to find the time to fit the debate into her schedule and she missed the voting.

" ... Barack Obama voted with Russ Feingold, D-Wis., on all six amendments and the cloture vote, only missing the vote on the final bill after the outcome had become clear."

Now this mess goes to the House and the Repubs are already strategizing as to how to get enough weak-kneed, spineless Democrats to go along with their betrayal of the Constitution.

Bush, as usual, is crying "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming." He actually said, as if he expected people to believe him, that "terrorists are planning new attacks on our country ... that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison."

The current bill expires today. Bush says he will not sign an extension. He wants all or nothing. The lily-livered Democrats in the House and Senate are saying, "Please, Mr. Bush, give us an extension and we'll figure out how to give you everything you want."

Bush said "Hell, no! I'll even postpone my scheduled trip to the foreign hinterlands in order to get the whole ball of wax now! 'Cause the terrorists are coming and we can't wait another day!"

Can't wait another day to give immunity to the telecoms? Please!

Well, now it looks like Bush has decided to wait another day. He's off to Africa and the bill hasn't been passed and the House is off for over a week and the country is gonna be terribly vulnerable to all kinds of terrorist attacks and it's all Bush's fault - as Olbermann put it, speaking to Mr. Bush:

"For the moment, at least, thanks to some true patriots in the House, and your own stubbornness, you have tabled telecom immunity, and the FISA act.

"You.

"By your own terms and your definitions -- you have just sided with the terrorists.

"You got to have this law or we're all going to die.

"But practically speaking, you vetoed this law."

Of course, as Mr. Olbermann so succinctly pointed out, everything that Bush said was "crap."

He quotes Richard Clarke: "Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire. If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year."

Olbermann goes on: "You are a liar, Mr. Bush, and after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar."

Speaking to Bush and the House Republicans, (and those 18 weak-kneed Democrats), Olbermann pulls no punches: "The lot of you, are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic, to whom "Freedom" is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for, when you want to get away with its opposite."

George W. Bush, like Adolf Hitler and every wannabe dictator since time immemorial, is playing the fear card; a tactic that has worked well. Scare the hell out of everybody with lie after lie after lie, and they'll let you do whatever you want, even, in the case of the U.S. of A, abrogate their precious U.S. Constitution.

When we shred the freedoms granted in our Constitution, the terrorists win!

Perhaps those people are right who think George W. Bush is al-Qaida's greatest ally!