New proposed NSA law "moronic ... too absurd even for the Congress"

[enough]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/03/post-mortem-on-intelligence-committee.html

Glenn Greenwald's Post-mortem on the Intelligence Committee vote. Long and well worth reading as usual.

snip>

What the legislation does, on its face, is replace FISA judges with Republican Senators in approving the government's eavesdropping activities. Whereas the country agreed to a framework 30 years ago which allowed the government to eavesdrop on Americans only if the Government persuaded a FISA judge that such eavesdropping was warranted, this proposed legislation eliminates that requirement and allows warrantless eavesdropping as long as 4 Republican Senators agree with the White House that such actions are warranted.

But there is a far bigger and more important problem. Congress already enacted legislation regulating the Government's eavesdropping activities. They called that law FISA. The Administration has been violating that law because they believe they have the power to do so, because they think that Congress has no power to regulate or limit the President's eavesdropping activities. Since the White House still believes it has this power, isn't passing another law facially moronic, given that the Administration has already said that they are free to violate whatever Congressional laws they want which purport to regulate eavesdropping?

snip>

The Administration has told Congress to its face that it has the power to ignore Congressional laws with regard to eavesdropping and that it is free to defy Congressional law mandating briefings on these types of intelligence activities. So, Congress' response is to pass another law to replace the one the White House violated, and to require some more briefing. Isn't that too absurd even for the Congress? At the very least, would it be possible for the media to explain to the public what has happened here?

(4) The issue which is left unresolved by all of these Congressional shenanigans is the issue that lies at the core of this scandal and several others: namely, we are a country in which the President has seized the power to break the law.

snip>

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Hey... I know moronic.... and this passes the smell test..... n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

2. "Moronic" in no way equates to "Too absurd for Congress."

[enough]

3. Greenwald has a few choice words for members of that august body:

snip>

1) Initially, it is almost unfathomable how little personal dignity these compliant GOP Senators have. Sens. Snowe and Hagel issued a statement in December pompously expressing their "profound concern" over the eavesdropping program and proclaiming that it is "critical" that the Senate hold hearings in order to learn what the Administration did when spying outside of FISA and without warrants on Americans.

After standing up and publicly making those statement and issuing those demands, they completely reverse themselves a few weeks later when the White House decrees that they do so. They thus vote against the very investigation which they both insisted, in public, was so critically important. If nothing else, just on a personal level, shouldn't they be way too embarrassed to be so blatantly manipulated and controlled, to the point where they demand hearings only to then vote against those same hearings a short time later all because that's what the White House demands?

snip>

[Ouabache]

4. I vote for #4

Hard telling how a Diebold memory card will actually handle my vote, but is it a clue that they would pass this and NOT worry that they would lose the 4th Republican vote of the 7 member congressional panel, next fall in the elections given that polls seem to indicate the Congress COULD very well change hands to the Democrats?

I predict the Republicans still hold Congress next fall. I predict McCain-Bush(jeb) in '08. And I predict McCain resigns at a point in his term where Jeb can finish it and add(iebold) two terms of his own.

Sorry. It's a mafia. Fascism is here to stay for a while.