After my calls today in which I still got no real answers from any of the Blue Dogs, I was still angry. Well, I did get one office saying it took courage to vote against your own party..as if they were proud of it.
This editorial makes it clear that the possible dangers this poses are not my imagination.
Unwarranted BetrayalIf the leaders of the Democrat-controlled Congress want to know why their approval ratings are lower than President Bush's low ratings, they need only look at how they caved in to White House demands for broader domestic surveillance powers. Sixteen Democrats in the Senate, and 41 in the House, voted with Republicans to give the administration broader powers to wiretap telephone messages and spy on e-mail correspondence of Americans without first obtaining court warrants as previously required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
...."Think of it. Here was a Democrat-controlled Congress that vowed to hold the White House accountable for its attempts to trample on the Fourth Amendment. And now it has done just the opposite. The danger can't be overstated. President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have never hidden their disdain for the niceties of the law, nor have they ever shown any compunction about using the powers of their office to go after political opponents. And now they have the power to invade Americans' privacy with impunity. There will be no checks and balances, no reports to Congress, no accountability. The potential for abuse is frightening.
As expected, the Bush administration put pressure on Congress in two ways: First, by warning that U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring increased chatter among terrorist suspects, and second by invoking the old, and discredited, argument that changing technologies had made it impossible for government agents to obtain an individual warrant from the secret FISA court every time they wanted to track a terror suspect. But FISA guidelines allow the government to proceed with spying when time is of the essence, provided agents obtain a warrant retroactively. Expanding the time frame for such retroactive warrants would have addressed the administration's concerns about timeliness.
Regrettably, the Democrats abandoned their own alternative plan that would have made surveillance decisions subject to later court review, while requiring public audits by the Justice Department's inspector general on the number of Americans who were monitored by the government. That would have provided an essential layer of accountability.
Hubby and I donated quite a bit more to the ACLU today when we got their email. I will say this truly scares me more than the threat of terrorism....that our own party gave in to the bullying. From the ACLU email today:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying /
From the email:
"Democratic “leaders” have crossed the line and betrayed the will of the majority who put them in power in 2006. This week, a timid Congress caved in to President Bush and his demand for more out-of-control authority to spy on Americans.
The FISA gutting legislation voted on last weekend allows for massive, untargeted collection of Americans’ international communications without court order. The law allows for no meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts and leaves decisions about the collection, mining and use of American information up to the Bush Administration’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. Tell Congress you believe in the Constitution and demand that it fix this legislation.
In short, instead of putting the brakes on the Bush Administration’s continued and reckless abuse of power, Congress handed them more power to invade our privacy and ignore our Constitutional rights.
And it never had to happen if leaders in the House and Senate had had the courage to take a stand and say “no more” to the Bush administration."
The petition to Reid and Pelosi:
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=Dont_Fail_Freedom_petition To Allen Boyd's office in Florida, I say to you: the cowardly way out was to give Bush and Gonzales this power. Talk to your staff, sir. Tell them in this case voting against your party was not the right thing to do.
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