Bush Administration is "Treating the Constitution as a Doormat" = Scott Horton.

[L. Coyote]

Treating the Constitution as a Doormat
Scott Horton - February 13, 2008 - http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002382

The Framers designed a system of government in which the powers of the state are carefully apportioned among three branches, with the ultimate objective of keeping the eternal quest of individuals for the aggrandizement of their power in check and to insure a maximum amount of freedom for the individual. For most of the last century, those who have thought carefully and deeply about the plight of human freedom in the future have been concerned about the threat posed by technological advances. On one hand, these advances promise the people more leisure and provide opportunities for education and the enhancement of the quality of life. But then there is the dark specter of the use of these same tools to intrude into every corner of our lives, to enslave and imprison the people in their own homes, by the creation of a national surveillance state of the sort that George Orwell powerfully conjured in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Of course, as Orwell and others told us, all of this will be presented as the beneign or even benevolent deed of a state intent on insuring our own security. That’s always the excuse offered.

If things proceed on the course now set by the Bush Administration and its shortsighted collaborators, and the national surveillance state is achieved in short order, then future generations looking back and tracing the destruction of the grand design of our Constitution may settle on yesterday, February 12, 2008, as the date of the decisive breach. It hardly got a mention in the media, obsessed as it was with reports on the primary elections, the use of drugs in sporting events, and that unfailing topic, the weather. Yesterday the Senate voted down the resolution offered by Senator Dodd to block retroactive immunity for the telecoms and it voted for a measure which guts the Constitution’s ban on warrantless searches by extending blanket authority to the Executive to snoop on the nation’s citizens in a wide variety of circumstances, subject to no independent checks. On the key vote, the Republicans in the Senate continued to function in lock-step, as they have on almost all significant issues for the last seven years, while the Democrats fragmented. Their vote summed up everything that’s wrong with Washington politics today. Fear and hard campaign cash rule the roost, and the Constitution is regarded as a meaningless scrap of parchment, indeed, a nuisance.

The issue in focus was a retroactive grant of immunity to telecommunications giants which violated the rights of millions of Americans by facilitating warrantless surveillance by the Bush Administration. With the exception of Qwest, they were knowingly complicit in criminal acts. And in a touch worthy of a totalitarian state, Qwest quickly found its CEO under criminal investigation and prosecuted. In fact the White House’s own arguments smack of the mentality of totalitarianism. Here’s the leading argument that the White House offers up in favor of the legislation:

“Companies should not be held responsible for verifying the government’s determination that requested assistance was necessary and lawful — and such an impossible requirement would hurt our ability to keep the Nation safe.”

But as Dan Froomkin notes at the Washington Post, “Isn’t that the very definition of a police state: ....

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Froomkin article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/02/12/BL2008021201228_4.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[VP505]

1. They don't under the

FISA Law, they could get immunity provided they get a warrant and follow the law, that lying sack of excrement * wants to protect them from illegal wiretapping, kind of convenient the WH left that part out of their statement.

“Companies should not be held responsible for verifying the government’s determination that requested assistance was necessary and lawful — and such an impossible requirement would hurt our ability to keep the Nation safe.”

[bdamomma]

2. treating the american people the same way,

when will we put a stop to this? or do we really have to hit rock bottom and then scratch our way out.

[L. Coyote]

3. Good point. The Tortured, of course, say the treatment is far worse!

They don't water torture, illegally confine, forcibly drug, and sexually abuse the Constitution YET! :rofl:

[L. Coyote]

4. visibility kick

[L. Coyote]

7. "

[L. Coyote]

8. one last time for a good read.

[lonestarnot]

5. IS?

[L. Coyote]

6. still is!