FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Haven't read all the details here, but it seems pretty clear that Bush has flagrantly violated this law. As many have pointed out, there are numerous procedurally defined (I don't want to say accepted) methods for obtaining surveillance permits for what the administration was probably doing. The fact the administration did not even attempt to pursue these avenues, even with the Patriot Act being passed to expedite them, should be a clear indicator that shady stuff is probably going on here.
This administration has mirrored the Nixon administration, and parts of the Reagan administration as a truly frightening portent. Why do conserva...I'm sorry they're not really conservative...Republi...oops, they don't really seem to want a republic either...well we'll just say the GOP due to a starvation of appropriate nomenclature. Anyway, why does the GOP insist on stressing the limits of constitutionally defined freedom...I'm sorry, that word doesn't mean much anymore...stressing the limits of rights (conservatives don't care about their rights, do they?), reducing oversight and checks and balances, and engaging in large-scale covert operations that fundamentally destroy our standing in the world, waste our money, and further the ends of only a few? In Nixon's case, we had the lunacy of his actions that prompted the passing of the FISA in the late 70s. In Reagan's case, we had Iran-Contra, as well as us initially establishing and supporting Saddam's regime in Iraq, sponsoring death squads in Latin America.
Now we have the Bush Administration, which tried to execute a coup in (huh, oil-rich, go figure) Venezuela's democratically elected left-wing government, went into Iraq with a flimsy facade of justification covering the only real possible motive (oil of course), a shadow network of torture, flagrant violations of checks and balances, oversight, and, well, the law.
Of course political realities will never allow this, I mean, imagine if Nixon had been doing all his shenanigans and the Republicans controlled congress. Would there have been impeachment proceedings? Well, I can imagine that, because really, it's what we have now. Admittedly I am a strident opponent of this administration. But I do have basic abilities of logic: using "war time powers" for justifying unconstitutional and unlawful actions, especially on the basic of a "war" that is equivalent to the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty", both of which arguably have killed and disrupted our day to day lives far more that the threat of terrorism, it just an outright violation.
And now a president with an approval rating of 40% basically tells everyone to fuck off?
In terms of sliding down the slippery slope, I'd say we're picking up a lot of speed.
Haven't read all the details here, but it seems pretty clear that Bush has flagrantly violated this law. As many have pointed out, there are numerous procedurally defined (I don't want to say accepted) methods for obtaining surveillance permits for what the administration was probably doing. The fact the administration did not even attempt to pursue these avenues, even with the Patriot Act being passed to expedite them, should be a clear indicator that shady stuff is probably going on here.
This administration has mirrored the Nixon administration, and parts of the Reagan administration as a truly frightening portent. Why do conserva...I'm sorry they're not really conservative...Republi...oops, they don't really seem to want a republic either...well we'll just say the GOP due to a starvation of appropriate nomenclature. Anyway, why does the GOP insist on stressing the limits of constitutionally defined freedom...I'm sorry, that word doesn't mean much anymore...stressing the limits of rights (conservatives don't care about their rights, do they?), reducing oversight and checks and balances, and engaging in large-scale covert operations that fundamentally destroy our standing in the world, waste our money, and further the ends of only a few? In Nixon's case, we had the lunacy of his actions that prompted the passing of the FISA in the late 70s. In Reagan's case, we had Iran-Contra, as well as us initially establishing and supporting Saddam's regime in Iraq, sponsoring death squads in Latin America.
Now we have the Bush Administration, which tried to execute a coup in (huh, oil-rich, go figure) Venezuela's democratically elected left-wing government, went into Iraq with a flimsy facade of justification covering the only real possible motive (oil of course), a shadow network of torture, flagrant violations of checks and balances, oversight, and, well, the law.
Of course political realities will never allow this, I mean, imagine if Nixon had been doing all his shenanigans and the Republicans controlled congress. Would there have been impeachment proceedings? Well, I can imagine that, because really, it's what we have now. Admittedly I am a strident opponent of this administration. But I do have basic abilities of logic: using "war time powers" for justifying unconstitutional and unlawful actions, especially on the basic of a "war" that is equivalent to the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty", both of which arguably have killed and disrupted our day to day lives far more that the threat of terrorism, it just an outright violation.
And now a president with an approval rating of 40% basically tells everyone to fuck off?
In terms of sliding down the slippery slope, I'd say we're picking up a lot of speed.
posted by constance eustace at 11:39 AM
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