What I don't understand about the wiretapping and Bush's accountability.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Okay, we all know that now that Alito is in the Supreme Court that we're all about to get railroaded. That's what the white crony networks do for one another at the local and state level. If one of their own gets in trouble, they go judge shopping in order to get a friendly judgment.

But if you're the President of the United States, you can pick your own Supreme Court Justice and write in your own interpretation of the law. And that's what will happen, unless the facts get known to the public early in the process and the decision is made in the court of public opinion.

Right now, the pundits are spinning this, claiming that the president has made his case to the public and the public agrees that wiretapping for national security reasons is tolerable. But that's a giant leap of faith because the common man doesn't know the specific people and groups who have been targeted. And as long as they don't realize that their phone calls could have been intercepted and someone may have a transcript, let's say, of their conversation with their lawyer concerning an illegal business transaction, the point won't be driven home.

So the question is, how can we get these specific facts to the public for two reasons:

(1) So the public can understand that any of us could have been involved in the illegal wiretapping; and

(2) So that members of the public who have been wronged, can begin their own civil proceedings.

If this information doesn't get out, then the outcome is predictable. The Republican led Congress will squelch any investigation and move the issue to the Supreme Court for a decision, where Alito, Scalia and Clarence Thomas will prove that they are plants for the Right-wing.

[mrcheerful]

1. We can't for the main fact that shrub spun it

so it sounds like he was only after terrorists and not john the farmer in iowa. The minute he said terrorist and spying it became ok to spy without warrents. Whats really funny to me is how the same people who are so afraid of the dems taking their guns don't seem to care that they lost their 4th admendmentt rights. sick sick sick.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. True. Republicans only care about Amendment 2 and they give

lipspeak to the Amendment that defines State's rights. I think it's Amendment 9?

Everybody else cares about the rest.

Now, about the wiretapping, they're spinning this so that it sounds like they only targeted a few muslim extremists, but at what point can we put it out there that not only did they target a much wider body of Americans, but that they are lying to the American people right now, in order to control public opinion?

Why doesn't someone call the pundit's bluff and ask them if the Bush Administration is lying to the public, again, about the scope of the damage, in order to control the spin, and if the pundits are not, in essence, helping them?

[Canuckistanian]

3. In the end, "the people" don't get to decide

This is a LAW. The people had their chance to influence this law when it was being made.

What I'm saying is, all the RW pundits say the public is with the president. But this is a country of laws, not men, as someone wisely said. And the public doesn't get to decide guilt or innocence.

The justice system should automatically take over in this case. That it hasn't, and there are no signs it will start anytime soon, is an indication of grave problems.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Your first two paragraphs are pre9/11, your last sentence

encapsulates my concerns.

[robbedvoter]

6. 911 did not suspend The Constitution, FISA.

Not even that bunch can claim that. The law was broken. It should be enforced. But we are no longer equals under the law. Some of us are above it.
P.S. "911 change it all" is a slogan. In effect no laws were changed whatsoever. But W started pushing the envelope re: spying BEFORE 911

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml
    James Risen, author of the book State of War and credited with first breaking the story about the NSA's domestic surveillance operations, said President Bush personally authorized a change in the agency's long-standing policies shortly after he was sworn in in 2001.

    "The president personally and directly authorized new operations, like the NSA's domestic surveillance program, that almost certainly would never have been approved under normal circumstances and that raised serious legal or political questions," Risen wrote in the book. "Because of the fevered climate created throughout the government by the president and his senior advisers, Bush sent signals of what he wanted done, without explicit presidential orders" and "the most ambitious got the message."

Reject their premise! 911 changed nothing!!!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. I agree with you, but we're all holding our breath right now, hoping

that Patrick Fitzgerald can hold the dike up with this finger.

Fitzgerald only has the laws to use against this Administration, so all the Administration has to do is change the law.

[robbedvoter]

11. Changing the law doesn't work retroactively: W broke EXISTING LAW.

It is a crime today - and it will be tomorrow, no matter what new laws they come up with.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. I hope you're right. I really do. But I know how the good ole boys

act in my area and this is following the same pattern.

[robbedvoter]

13. I am right - studied law and all. I also know dictatorships so...

[robbedvoter]

5. Bingo! Existing law was broken. He admitted doing it. Case closed.

Book him Dano! (if we were still a nation of laws, as Gore naively thought when he bowed to the SCOTUS ruling in 2000)

[endarkenment]

7. "the public agrees" is bullshit

The lying punditocracy is using a cooked poll that asked a bogus question that used the same lie that the fascist creep in the white house is using - that the monitoring consists of wiretaps used against al qaeda supects - to crow that "the public supports" what the fascists are doing. And you it seems have bought the bullshit as well.

Nobody is arguing that wiretaps on 'suspects' are wrong. But that is not what is going on. Instead we have wholesale monitoring of domestic communications on the off chance that this will produce some suspects, and that is illegal and no poll indicates any support for that.

We keep falling for the framing instead of stepping back, analyzing it, calling bullshit, and indentifying the actual issue.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Fine. How do we let the public know that the media is, once again,

influencing public opinion?

[endarkenment]

10. Well for starters we stop agreeing with the framing.

See Howard Dean's successful efforts to force a retreat on the "its a bipartisan corruption scandal" bullshit. Oh yes they keep bringing it up again but it gets flogged pretty well and they now have to qualify their bullshit and it sounds like qualified bullshit.

"We" refuse to accept the framing.