Another blow to the Constitution

And the more power the Cheney-Bush administration gets, the more it wants

James Risen, one of the mainstream reporters who still commits real acts of journalism, reports on the latest Cheney-Bush strike against the Constiution, abetted in part by Congressional Democrats, in Bush Signs Law to Widen Reach for Wiretapping New York Times 08/06/07. He reports on the law just passed by Congress:

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

One saving grace (?) of the law is that it sunsets after six months. Which means that Congress will have to revisit it. Hopefully, Congress will take their duty to defend the Consitution more seriously the next time around.

We should be clear who the opponents of the Constitution are. The bill was passed overwhelmingly with Republican votes. The House vote for the severely flawed bill was 227-183.

But this is one the Democrats should have blocked. One major problem of this bill is the new, sweeping authority to authorize warrantless wiretaps that it gives to Attorney General Abu Gonzales, who may be the most shameless and irresponsible of the Bush courtiers.

The Democratic leaders should have insisted on staying in session until a reasonable compromise was achieved. The had achieved a reasonable agreement with Director of Homeland Security Michael Hayden Michael McConnell. Then Bush rejected it.

The Dems should have gotten in front of the cameras and delivered a message over and over again along the lines of, "Bush rejected a sound measure. He insisted instead on giving expanded power to Abu Gonzales the Torture Guy. The Democrats will not allow an irresponsible man like Abu Gonzales the Torture Guy to have such powers."

Presumably, the fear is that the will look "soft of terrorism". But they Dems should have learned by now that no amount of compromising on un-Consitutional legislation will stop the Republicans from accusing them of being "soft of terrorism". In fact, caving in on a bad bill like this just promotes the theme. Just check out this report from our "paper of record", House Approves Changes in Eavesdropping by Carl Husle and Edmund Andrews New York Times 08/05/07:

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet.

They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they are likely to resurface before the end of the year.

This would have been an excellent opportunity for the Dems to expose how blantantly partisan Bush has been in the way he has handled "homeland security" issues. They shouldn't have taken a pass. Not even with a six months' sunset provision.

I'm disappointed in the Democrats on this one. They weren't acting like the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson on this one.

See also More on the FISA debacle by Joan Walsh Salon 08/06/07:

It is exactly six years to the day since Bush got the harrowing Presidential Daily Brief, "Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S." and continued with his month-long Crawford vacation - and then had the gall to depict Democrats as soft on terror in the next two elections. Are Democrats still so cowed by the way the GOP used 9/11 against them that they're afraid to protect Americans from government spying? Are Americans still so cowed they don't care? I hope the political fallout from the FISA debacle proves otherwise, but I'm not sure yet.

Glenn Greenwald has also been holding forth on this at Salon: Democrats' responsibility for Bush radicalism 08/04/07; Chris Dodd on FISA, habeas corpus and Democratic capitulation 08/05/07; The strong and tough Democrats 08/06/07.

Marty Lederman at the excellent Balinization blog also points us to some Helpful FISA Posts 08/05/06. Jack Balkin, the blog's namesake, weighs in on The Party of Fear, the Party Without A Spine, and the National Surveillance State 08/05/07. He also points out that a key goal of Bush's and his authoritarian Republican Party is to have Congress establish legal immunity for those who broke the law in the warrantless surveillance program in Bush to Democratic Congress: Your Complete Capitulation is Not Good Enough 08/06/07.

Tags: authoritarianism, democratic party, democrats, fisa, republican party