Wake Up

It’s your kitty cat alarm clock.  Enjoy…  (H/T to twolf1 for the link.)

Heads up:  Sen. Chris Dodd is set to give a speech on FISA and civil liberties on the floor of the Senate around 10 am ET.  And I’m told it will be a scorcher.  You might want to turn on C-Span2… 

There are three branches of government.  Congress has the responsibility of oversight over the actions of the executive branch, as does the judiciary for determining the lawfulness or lack thereof of actions and laws.  And, despite what George Bush and Dick Cheney may think about the unilateral executive being able to tra la unfettered down the merry path to “what the President says is law” land, it’s a load of dung.  Constitutionally speaking, of course.  Which makes this petulant pronouncement all the more appalling:

…Neither the House Intelligence Committee nor the House Judiciary Committee has been shown the documents. Mr. Fratto noted that a bill pending in the House contained no provision for immunity from lawsuits and suggested that unless that changed, the House committees would not see the documents.

“If the committees say they have no interest in legislating on the issue of liability protection, we have no reason to accommodate them,” he said.

Mr. Fratto said the administration was generally pleased with the Senate bill, though it opposes its six-year sunset provision and is seeking changes in the language of a provision that would require court warrants for eavesdropping on Americans traveling overseas. “Over all, it’s a pretty good start,” he said.

The security agency’s program to eavesdrop without warrants on international communications of Americans and others in the United States suspected of links to Al Qaeda started with extraordinary secrecy after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Congress has fought for more information on the program for several years….

First of all, the Bush Administration started trying to end-run FISA laws SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE 9/11, according to the former CEO of Qwest. Do try and report it accurately. This power grab and illegal activity began soon after the Bushies took office, and despite it 9/11 happened anyway. 

Second, no one gets a pass on following the law (H/T looseheadprop) – not the President, not David Addington, no one.  And despite Mr. Fratto’s public attempt at playing whiny hardball with the House legislation, the White House has no right to withhold documents for oversight.  And they should not be allowed to get away with trying.  Further, Americans enjoy civil liberties built into a nifty document I call the Constitution — try not to subvert that for a change.

As Jane put it yesterday:

The current FISA bill was due to sunset in February. The Democrats would make some unconvincing noise about concern for civil liberties, rule of law, yadda yadda yadda, but the only part of this bill that deals with national security — the updating of certain technology issues that allow for eavesdropping on foreign-to-foreign calls that are routed through the US — is something that everyone, even Russ Feingold, agrees needs to happen. Nobody is opposing that. A bill like that could pass tomorrow.

But George Bush won’t sign that bill. He’s made it clear he will only sign a bill that gives retroactive telecom immunity, and one can imagine that these telecom fuckers are going to be singing like a flock of canaries about those in the administration who induced them to commit these crimes if they can’t skate on their charges post haste….

The White House is trying to play bait and switch — stringing Congress along by continuously switching the rules up. Well, here’s an answer for you Tony, my lad: NO.

The White House must provide all documents. Not just the selective ones you leak to the media to make you look good — ALL documents. We saw throughout the Libby trial how you selectively release information, and we are not buying your smelly little pig in a poke. Further, there will be no telecom immunity. Why? Because to give them that is to give up all leverage on a WH that operates more like a criminal enterprise bent on subverting new territory to its control than it does as a leader keeping the interests of the nation first and foremost. Always have. And because of that, you lost the benefit of the doubt somewhere back in 2001.  If you couldn’t get it through the GOP-controlled Congress back in 2006, you sure as hell shouldn’t get it now.

While I’m at it, Mr. Fratto, I’m calling bullshit on the inevitable pincer maneuver of Wurlitzer mouthpieces calling us unpatriotic and senatorial whispering that Democrats are “soft on national security.”  It is time that it was called out as the utter, trumped up crap of a hissy fit that it is. You roll out that idiocy every time you are wrong on an issue and expect the public to buy it — no more, your product is stale. Henceforth, IOKIYAR is no longer operative. Why? Because every time you do that, you are really covering your asses on a vulnerable point and I see your tell on this one: true patriots stand up for American values, true patriots are not afraid, and true patriots follow the law and respect the Constitution.

The President broke the law — knowingly and willingly (H/T powwow)– and you are terrified that he’ll be held to account for it. Jane was absolutely right that the corporations would sing like canaries if they were found to be operating outside the law. (Can you hear the explanatory plotting for Congressional testimony already by all the in-house counsels who knew beforehand that they needed a lawful subpoena to turn over all this information in the first place — and now they have to practice CYA law to point the finger elsewhere?)

No, Mr. Fratto — it is high time that someone called your blustering bluff for what it is — desperation.  Now I have a question for you:  what are you trying so hard to hide?

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