When, in December 2005, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that ‘President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying’, it was obvious that an impeachable offense had occurred. It has since been revealed that Bush sought to do warrantless searches prior to 9/11, and it is unlikely that this request had anything to do with terrorism. Terrorism was a very small priority for the Bush administration prior to 9/11.
There was no prospect of impeachment in the Republican congress, nor even of any real investigation. What’s appalling is that the Democratic congress is now in the process of legalizing what Bush did without even having a legitimate investigation. They are legalizing it by expanding the power of the government, so that they will be able to do what was formerly criminal. In addition, they will grant retroactive immunity to the corporations that willingly went along with warrantless illegal surveillance. These corporations already enjoy immunity from prosecution for cooperating with the government if they can prove that they received authorization from either a court or the sitting Attorney General. The only reason to offer them immunity is to cover up the real extent of their crimes.
The Senate Democrats, under the leadership of Harry Reid of Nevada, are now committing the same crime that all patriotic and knowledgeable Americans thought was an impeachable offense.
There is plenty of reason to believe that the government has been sweeping up all email and web browsing information on Americans without any warrant. If this is true, then there is no question that the president should be impeached along with anyone else that authorized this program. But, if the telecommunications corporations lawsuits are destroyed through retroactive immunity, we will never know. The administration will simply refuse to cooperate with congressional investigations.
The leadership of the Democrats in the Senate are now actively abetting a cover-up and allowing a system to go forward with newly expanded powers to violate our rights and our privacy. In other words, they now deserve to be removed from office. Yes, the Republicans all fall into this category. But the revelation that so many Democrats care so little about our rights is new (at least to many).
Sen. Chris Dodd is doing everything within his power to prevent this shameful result. But he is going to lose. When he does, it is quite likely that the majority of Democrats in the Senate will vote for a FISA bill that quashes our ability to ever learn the extent to which our privacy has been invaded, or why.
I hope the people of Iowa are watching. I hope Democrats and libertarians are taking note of who is, and who is not, doing everything they can to stand up for the rule of law and the creep of domestic tyranny.
As a general matter, rank-and-file Democrats are learning something tremendously disconcerting about the leadership of our party (at least in the Senate). One thing we are learning is that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are either deeply compromised (through prior silence and/or complicity) or strongly disinterested in our civil liberties.
The idea that all this surveillance was targeted at terrorists is ridiculous. As Senator Dodd is explaining on the floor of the Senate right now, the NSA was snooping on all emails, text messages, and web surfing out of AT&T’s San Francisco office, even though the San Francisco office has very little foreign communications passing through it. But Democrats like Barbara Mikulski, Evan Bayh, and Jay Rockefeller don’t seem to care at all about that. Harry Reid opposes immunity, but he brought up the FISA law in a way that disadvantages advocates of his position.
The leadership we are seeing from the presidential candidates (excluding Dodd) is extremely weak. Clinton, Biden, and Obama didn’t even show up to vote today. They all claim to support Chris Dodd, but none of them are giving him more than lip service. While he takes off valuable campaigning time to stand up for our civil rights and the rule of law, they continue to seek caucus votes at Dodd’s expense.
Given these facts, more and more Democrats are throwing up their hands. What is the point in working to elect a Democratic congress if they will not stand up for us or hold Bush accountable for his actions? Why work for a presidential candidate that can’t even interrupt their campaign to vote on such a vital matter?
At this point, it’s Dodd or Edwards. The others had their chance to show us something, and they didn’t show up.
You can watch a patriot in action on C-SPAN2.
