GBREY'S BADASSS BLOG

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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Domestic Spying: Safe in Gonzo's Hands?

The Bush administration's (can't wait to stop writing that in 17 months) illegal wiretapping program (which the administration put back under FISA court authority as soon as the Democrats took control of Congress just in case Congress started to do its job and investigate illegal things like an illegal surveillance program), is in danger of being allowed via Congressional legislation that would give Alberto Gonzalez the authority to decide whether the "purely international" spying that occurs is proper; He would also have the power to compel phone companies and internet service providers to hand over their user's records. Yes, the Alberto Gonzalez that wrote the memo to authorize torture, and the one that is on the verge of having perjury charges written up because of his testimony. Worse still, the administration is trying to skirt the authority of a FISA court that allows for warrants to be approved after the surveillance has begun, and has only rejected one warrant out of 4,248 in the last 2 years.

Democrats may be concerned about Bush-Cheney-Gonzalez civil liberties abuses, but they're much more worried about the political risk involved in actually defending our civil liberties or the Constitution (or else they'd impeach Bush-Cheney-Gonzalez already). Imagine if there was another terrorist attack after the Democrats actually made the administration abide by the law. The Dems could be painted as the ones that kept the government from doing its job of protecting the people. Then they'd lose elections (which is all that really matters now right?) and the GOP would do even worse things to our freedoms. So in order to protect our rights in the future, the Dems have to let them get trampled on now. Tortured logic not worthy of true statesman? That's our Congress. Let them know that now is the time to enforce the Constitution that they swore to protect...