Tag: wiretapping

So what if he’s withdrawn, he’s still on the ballot, and there’s no delegates at stake anyhow.

15% for Dodd would send a message to Michigan’s Senators, Reps, and hopefully the rest of the Congressional Dems that an extension of wiretap authority is unaccesptable. It’s not just immunity, Reid’s now, according to the Wall Street Journal, going to put up an 18 month extension of the Protect America Act, extending authority for warrantless taps.

The “problem” the bill was intended to fix, a FISA Court decision requiring warrants for foreign to foreign calls transiting US soil, is no big deal. If there’s reason to believe the calls sare terrorist communications, there’s still a process for getting FISA warrants.

Pass nothing, let the stinker expire.

Also posted at Planet Orange.

We’ve been hearing from Bush at least since October–Congress must listen to him to keep America safe:

Today the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees are considering a proposed bill that instead of making the Protect America Act permanent would take us backward

He goes on to make sure we know that:

Keeping this authority is critical to keeping America safe

And that those patriotic telecoms were acting in America’s best interest:

And it must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks.

So what do we find out today?

Aus des Rheines Gold ist der Reif geglüht.

Watching a DVD of the New York Metropolitan’s version of Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (or Twilight of the Gods [TOG]) the other day, I was struck at how prescient the otherwise reactionary composer was in anticipating the destruction of the voracious classes. (One should not find it odd that in Wagner one finds mixed the most progressive and the most reactionary of views and trends, as in this he is the exemplar of the age, which mixes reason and progress with vile reaction, destruction, and mass murder.)

Dick Cheney, who is Alberich in my analogy with Wagner’s opera, was on the stump beating war tom-toms against Iran during a 35-minute talk at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which The New York Times calls “a research organization”. In reality, WINEP is a well-known right-wing pro-Israel lobby. While praised by liberal dreamboat Al Gore as “Washington’s most respected center for studies on the Middle East”, according to Right Web:

Crossposted at Invictus

So Federal Judge Michael B. Mukasey said he was against torture in his confirmation hearing, and the liberals are ready to fall all over him. His confirmation as Bush’s new attorney general is presumably a given. Never mind that he refused to comment on the secret 2005 Bush Administration memorandums authorizing harsh, “enhanced” interrogation techniques by the CIA. Listen to Mukasey get all huffy at his nomination hearing today:

When Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, suggested in his questioning that the 2005 opinions might authorize torture, Mr. Mukasey stopped him. “You characterize it as torture,” he said. “I do not know of such a policy and I hope not to find them.”

Nor would he comment in detail on the legality of the so-called warrantless wiretap program that was authorized by President Bush shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been harshly criticized by civil liberties groups and lawmakers from both parties as possibly unconstitutional.

“I am not familiar with that program,” said Mr. Mukasey, who knew enough about the program to refer to it as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, the name preferred by the White House.

“IMMUNITY” IS NOT the word that should be being used to highlight and headline stories regarding the case of the telecoms and the FISA bill. “Retroactive immunity” is not even right. These terms put the focus of this story on the telecoms. It belongs on the White House. If the word is going to be used at all, it should be along the lines of “Bush seeking protection for possible White House crimes with immunity request.”?