The FISA bill proposed by Arlen Specter, in collaboration with the White House, is one of the most pernicious pieces of legislation introduced during the Bush presidency. Today, Specter's Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 10-8, to send the Specter bill to the full Senate (along with competing bills from Sen. DeWine and one jointly sponsored by Sens. Specter and Feinstein).
Because the Specter bill has the support of several supposedly "independent" Republicans (at least) as well as the White House, the only real chance to prevent its enactment is a Democratic-led filibuster in the Senate. This bill, for reasons I have set forth here and here, is incomparably destructive on numerous levels. It would, in sum, abolish all meaningful restrictions and oversight on the President's eavesdropping powers, formally adopt the administration's radical theories of limitless executive power, and destroy the ability to subject the President's eavesdropping conduct to meaningful judicial review (including holding the President accountable for past lawbreaking). As Atrios said today: "If the Democrats are unwilling to stop this, then there really isn't much point in bothering." [my em]
...
Time to make some calls. I made it easy. Just use the form in the 'Complaint Department' section of the left sidebar.
Well, do it. As Lambert says:
"Refusing to give a blank check?" Bush's warrantless surveillance program involved over 30 felonies. Now the Republicans want to "legalize" all 30 of Bush's felonies - retroactively.
What check is blanker than that?
No comments:
Post a Comment