I’m still too ill to put two coherent sentences together. But I think this is interesting.
[Sen. Patrick] Leahy revealed that Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will chair a new subcommittee on human rights. The new panel’s agenda will include overseeing legislation on torture and detainee treatment.
That will give Dick Durbin something high profile to do. Leahy looks like he means business.
“This administration has been less and less willing to let us know what they are doing,” Leahy said in prepared remarks obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and the government’s secretive terrorism risk assessments of Americans traveling abroad merit a closer look by his panel, Leahy said.
“Americans’ privacy is a price the Bush administration is willing to pay for the cavalier way it is spawning new databanks,” he said in the prepared text. “We are way overdue in catching up to the erosion of privacy, and the Judiciary Committee now will help to bring this picture into focus.”
Also on the agenda, Leahy said, is a bill he has introduced to crack down on war profiteering in Iraq. The measure would prohibit profiteering and fraud by contractors in connection with a war, relief or reconstruction efforts and set stiff punishments of prison time and fines.
Me likes. I think I am going to enjoy watching C-SPAN next year.
