2006-01-22

Big Brother Bush's Charade

At no time during this four-year debate about security and civil liberties, despite well-established Congressional procedures for discussions that involve classified material, has the Bush Administration advised Congress in any meaningful way that it was in ongoing violation of FISA; nor has it ever formally sought to amend the law to accommodate the sorts of technological advances that it now cites as the very reason for its secret program. In other words, the Administration has conducted a prolonged charade during which it has pretended to participate in a democratic process of amending and enacting legislation, while secretly and monumentally violating the law that was under consideration.

6 comments:

Paul Hue said...

I oppose a lot of these steps that Bush is taking, though I believe that most Americans don't care, so long as there's fewer attacks on the US than they expected. I also realize that in war time all US presidents have behaved this way -- worse, actually -- and freedom/prosperity in the US continued to exand over the years.

Paul Hue said...

I think I may support Bush on bugging Americans in their international communications during war time. How did this work during WWII? And I would like there to be some oversight, so that somebody from another branch of government can validate who is being monitored.

Paul Hue said...

I think I may support Bush on bugging Americans in their international communications during war time. How did this work during WWII? And I would like there to be some oversight, so that somebody from another branch of government can validate who is being monitored.

Alpha Conservative Male said...

I would love for people that own Nextel phones to complain about being monitored lol. Seeing that everybody can hear their conversations in the first place. If Bush would have stopped the 911 attacks with info gained from the domestic surveillance, would he have been called a hero or still wrong for doing so?The old saying olds true. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well if everybody is dead then they're isn't anybody to corrupt correct?

Paul Hue said...

The more I learn about this issue, the more I side with Bush on bugging international durring wartime. It seems that the critics are either trying to impose new constraints on Bush that previous war-time presidents didn't have, or they need to clarify their position: Bush and all previous war-time presidents have violated the US Constitution in monitoring international communications without getting warrents from the judicial branch.

Paul Hue said...

Durring WWII, do you guys think that the US military monitored letters and phone calls between domestic citizens and Germany, Japan, and Italy? Do you think they obtained warrents? Should they have?