re: Conyers' bill - Am I missing something, or is it kind of silly?

[BlooInBloo]

Don't get me wrong - I love Conyers. But over at Crooks & Liars, there's theh following description of a bill from Conyers:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/11.html#a8245

"Harman and Conyers just introduced a bill: "The Act would require any attempt to listen in on Americans or collect telephone or e-mail records to be be conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA)"

To my eye, this looks like Conyers wants to pass a law requiring gw to, well, obey the law.

Which seems silly to me for the simple reason: if gw was willing to break the first law, why on god's green earth would anyone expect him to follow a law making it illegal to break the first one?

There's a law against bank robbing. Why pass ANOTHER law making it illegal to break the bank robbing law? That seems to me to be the very essence of redundancy.

Ya know what I mean? Maybe I'm missing something....

[rzemanfl]

1. Exactly, the silliness is the point of the bill. n/t

[Nite Owl]

2. Maybe Conyers

wants the repukes to come to the floor and say we already have that law so he can say that well then the *President broke it!

[BlooInBloo]

6. Ok - possibly it's a rhetorical/political sledgehammer...

I can kind of see that I guess...

[ixion]

3. yeah that thought crossed my mind as well

I mean, I see what they're trying to do, but what really ought to be happening is the conveneing of a Grand Jury and an Independant Counsel to investigate the plethora of scandals left in the wake of BushCo.

[BlooInBloo]

4. Just saw Atrios says the same thing....

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114737978922583949

"Just on CNN, it appears Jane Harman may have finally woken from her slumber and her and other Dems have introduced legislation which would require the NSA to comply with FISA. Of course, FISA already requires them to comply with FISA so, you know, maybe if we super-double-mean-it the administration might listen."

fwiw.

[Robbien]

5. What Conyers should be doing is threaten the Ethics Committee

if that is possible.

They should be enforcing ethical behavior of the WH and Congress, but they are MIA.

[BlooInBloo]

8. I wasn't aware that they had jurisdiction of the Exectuive....

The Ethics Committee, I mean.

[electropop]

7. I couldn't find it on Conyers' site,

but maybe I missed it. I did see him say the Voting Rights Act re-authorization passed in committee, 37 to 1. So far, so good. Except for the 1, who will be jobless after November.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Try the other Congressman, maybe? Dunno.