But big red bell pepper as a loin cloth?

A ceremonial codpiece perhaps. Loincloth not so much.

It's over and has been for more than year since Congress legalized torture. Did you think the Congress was going to stop illegal wiretaps and allow the phone companies to be held responsible by law? As Ray McGovern pointed out, Pelosi and the other Democrats were in on legalizing torture from the beginning and have been giving out retroactive immunity ever since. If Democrats really wanted a return to constitutional government, why haven't they even tried to repeal the MCA? The reason is plain as day: For all their protests to the contrary (just enough to get money from liberals online), they support torture and illegal wiretapping.

Benjamin Franklin said we'd have a republic as long as we chose to keep it, but once a people became corrupt, despotism was inevitable, since that's the only kind of government suitable for corrupted people. We chose not to keep it and it's been dead since MCA was passed. Once Congress legalizes wiretapping, can we at least give our dead republic a decent burial? It's starting to go putrid.

But he needs to get the numbers right:

MILLIONS, not thousands.

Yesterday Senator Chris Dodd said:

While the President may think that it's right to offer immunity to those who break the law and violate the right to privacy of thousands of law-abiding Americans, I want to assure him it is not a value we have in common and I hope the same can be said of my fellow Democrats in the Senate.

As another poster noted the other day, AT&T leases out their network to any and all of the smaller telecoms. Much of that traffic will go through that NSA room.

That is the same issue I am seeing. To approach it from a slightly different angle: What real difference does a new statute make that grants immunity to telecoms acting in accordance with a legal directive when the existing FISA already immunizes telecoms who follow legal directives under FISA?

If a court were to find that FISA isn't the exclusive means of conducting electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, and that there is another legal means by which the government can direct telecoms to wiretap without FISA warrants, then the proposed new statute would likely immunize telecoms acting in accordance with that alternative means; but as long as the extra-FISA surveillance was itself extra-legal, I'm having trouble seeing how the new statute would provide the telecoms additional immunity.

an unsigned editorial, possibly written by:

http://nytimes.com/ref/opinion/editorial-board.html

DOROTHY SAMUELS | Law, Civil Rights & National Affairs
A member of the editorial board since 1984, Dorothy Samuels writes on a wide array of legal and social policy issues. Prior to joining The Times, she briefly practiced corporate law with a big Wall Street firm, leaving there to pursue her interests in public policy and journalism. For four years, Ms. Samuels served as executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the largest affiliate of the national A.C.L.U. In 2001, in a change of pace, she published a comic novel, "Filthy Rich." Ms. Samuels is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Northeastern University School of Law.
- - http://nytimes.com/ref/opinion/editorial-board.html

http://nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun1.html

The New York Times
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Editorial
Spies, Lies and FISA

As Democratic lawmakers try to repair a deeply flawed bill on electronic eavesdropping, the White House is pumping out the same fog of fear and disinformation it used to push the bill through Congress this summer. President Bush has been telling Americans that any change would deny the government critical information, make it easier for terrorists to infiltrate, expose state secrets, and make it harder “to save American lives.”

There is no truth to any of those claims.

[...]

The House bill would permit the government to conduct surveillance for 45 days before submitting it to court review and approval. (Mr. Bush is wrong when he says the bill would slow down intelligence gathering.) After that, ideally, the law would require a real warrant. If Congress will not do that, at a minimum it must require spying programs to undergo periodic audits by the court and Congress. The administration wants no reviews.

Mr. Bush and his team say they have safeguards to protect civil liberties, meaning surveillance will be reviewed by the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and the inspectors general of the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. There are two enormous flaws in that. The Constitution is based on the rule of law, not individuals; giving such power to any president would be un-American. And this one long ago showed he cannot be trusted.

Last week, The Times reported that the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, is investigating the office of his agency’s inspector general after it inquired into policies on detention and interrogation. This improper, perhaps illegal investigation sends a clear message of intimidation. We also know that the F.B.I. has abused expanded powers it was granted after 9/11 and that the former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, systematically covered up the president’s actions with deliberately misleading testimony.

Mr. Bush says the law should give immunity to communications companies that gave data to the government over the last five years without a court order. He says they should not be punished for helping to protect America, but what Mr. Bush really wants is to avoid lawsuits that could uncover the extent of the illegal spying he authorized after 9/11.

It may be possible to shield these companies from liability, since the government lied to them about the legality of its requests. But the law should allow suits aimed at forcing disclosure of Mr. Bush’s actions. It should also require a full accounting to Congress of all surveillance conducted since 9/11. And it should have an expiration date, which the White House does not want.

Ever since 9/11, we have watched Republican lawmakers help Mr. Bush shred the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism. We have seen Democrats acquiesce or retreat in fear. It is time for that to stop.

- - http://nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun1.html