telecom immunity, FISA, and the President

Well now being away from the computer has been nice but I have a list of things to comment on, I will start with a brief one about the whole FISA thing.

I will argue why the telecoms should get retro-active immunity. Or at least why I do not really care if they do or not. This FISA bill sucks of course and is a smack in the face of the rule of law in this land and the constitution but it is ironic how everyone seems to miss the larger point, that is that the President of the United States has broken the law (here and elsewhere), everyone knows it, and he is getting away with it.

Ok so the President comes to a business with a letter from his lawyers, maybe even his Attorney General, that says in order to fight terrorism we need to do X, Y, and Z and we need your help! Now of course these companies (the telecoms) have lawyers who may have said this doesn't seem legal (to spy on Americans without a warrant) but who can blame the people who made the decision to side with the White House Lawyers and the President of the US, after all he is the Commander in Chief.

The thing I find amazing is that they obviously broke the law a the bequest of the President which is why they need retroactive immunity. So why are we not UP IN ARMS (figuratively for those who are reading this email without a warrant) over the fact that our President has been braking the law! And this is only one of 35 impeachable offenses outlined by Dennis Kucinich. This President is a criminal, how is it that the American people are letting this guy stay in power? We blame the Democrats (who are as a whole very lame in standing up against Bush) but ultimately they are our representatives so we need to either pressure them, elect better Democrats (like Russ Feingold) or shut the hell up.

Now real quick lets look at the law that has been broken here. FISA was written by the Democrats when Nixon was spying on the Democratic party. The law says that a warrant from a secret court must be given in order for the Federal Government to engage in domestic spying. The real kicker is that the warrant can be sought retroactively, allowing the government to spy and THEN ask for permission. Out of tens of thousands of warrant requests only a handful were ever denied. If the government had ANY evidence certainly a warrant would be granted. So it was a GOOD law.

BEFORE 9/11 the Bush crew began to spy without court orders (illegal). The question this should force us to ask is who did they want to spy on that they thought the FISA court would deny them a warrant to do so? Here we have an administration that has been in constant campaign mode, politicizing every agency including the justice department, outing CIA operatives, imprisoning indefinitely and TORTURING INNOCENT people without evidence, and spying on peace organizations like the Quakers who were trying to voice opposition to the illegal and immoral Iraq war before it began. These are the folks we are TRUSTING to spy on hundreds of thousands of Americans without any court oversight?

Absolutely ridiculous!!!

Unfortunately this Bill being voted on in Congress would help give immunity to the President which is the REAL problem with it!

On this issue I certainly wish more Democrats in congress would stand up. But they are not perfect, as we can see with Obama, neither is he. I disagree with him on many issues, including this one. But for people to let things like this prevent them from voting for Obama or other Democrats is foolish! First we must look at ALL the issues and second we must look at the alternative. People do not want to vote for the Democrats because they allow the Republicans to break the law. If we would just elect Democrats then there will be no Republicans to break the laws! And if these issues are so important then we need to nominate someone like Dennis Kicinich or Russ Feingold to be president, not a moderate mainstream Democrat like Obama.
OK enough of that.