Letters to the Editor
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Isn't Anybody Even Curious?
Soooo, the contenders did not cave to Bush on the FISA Amendment. (Nor did any one of them demonstrate leadership on this vital issue).
And when one of them becomes President... would they seek to repeal it?
Would they roll back the FISA Amendment's monstrous assault on the 4th Amendment? Or the grotesque Military Commissions Act?
Or, once in charge, would the temptation to wield this monarchial power be too tempting?
Has any candidate promised to remove these stains on the Constitution? Has any candidate (other than Dodd re the Military Commissions Act) even stated a position? Isn't any reporter even curious?
Nooooo, it is more important to focus on John Edwards' haircut, etc.
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Boxer, etc.
Barbara Boxer not voting
I wonder if she's laying low while trying to work out that bill with Inhofe on infrastructure funding. Disappointing, to be sure. One disappointment among many.
I agree with Goferit in worrying whether the Democrats will repeal the assorted things the Bush League has granted itself to create their executive coup of our government. I imagine it would take a Democrat of articulate principles to explain why those things need to be done away with, in the face of opposition that would likely decry them as being "soft on terrorism" or whatever other slurs they want to lob.
But clearly the GOP did serious damage to our country (of which the FISA chicanery is just one example), and the Democrats must not give into the temptation to keep those things going.
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It's not enough to vote against it
frankly, the bill never should have been brought to the floor of either the house or senate. much less "negotiated" or voted on. this is about provisions protecting the past. it's about corporate donors and the fear of being called "soft" on [whatever it is the GOP is selling as the next sure fire fix to whatever ails us]. we'll, the democratic party as a whole is soft on principle. I'm not.
that at&t, verizon, etc. chose to participate in breaking the law is not my concern. that W and his cronies elected to take the easy way out again (remember, it'd be a lot easier with a dictator, especially if W is the dictator), rather than obey the law while working to change it is not my concern either. that's why we have laws, so we don't face this little problem. When laws get broken people pay the price.
But, there's nothing to see here now. Orwellian at its finest. No laws were broken in the past, because we fixed everything up in the present.
Have a nice day. But watch who you talk to, where you visit and what you do. the government has ears and you might be the next MSM exploitation fragmentation.
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whether or not the people care
It occurs to me that if you asked most people what the debate surrounding the bill was about, I'm guessing most either wouldn't know, or, assuming they follow mainstream news sources like CNN, would characterize it as a relatively uncontroversial bill that was simply designed to "modernize" existing legislation to allow for cell-phone technology and the like.
If this is in fact the case, much of the blame lies with the media, of course, but not all of it.
Joan, you mentioned your disappointment with Edwards for not criticizing the bill. I understand. But what about Obama and Hillary going after each other last week when they could have both criticized Junior for his power grab, thereby forcing the wretched political press to explain what they were talking about?
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We need action
Not grousing. Will somebody please make up a mailing list of Democrats who voted for the bill, and then me a hundreds of thousands of others can sign on? Move on? Anybody?
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Edwards and FISA at YKos
Edwards was very critical of the FISA cave-in at the breakout session at YKos. He said "after George Bush has broken the law on domestic spying you now want to expand that power and put it in the hands of Gonzales?" He was astounded that the democrats caved the way they did.
I would expect they willl make a public statement today.
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Why do some events galvanize while others disappear?
I'd be interested in finding out why some stories galvanize the public, and others don't. I doubt anyone outside news junkies even know about this FISA revision. I can't tell any revelations of warrantless wiretapping, or violations of civil liberties at all, have grabbed public attention. So what will it take, or what was it about the stories that did grab the public? A great example is the collapse of the bridge. There have been other infrastructure collapses recently, some I hadn't heard of until the Minneapolis bridge brought attention to the story. Why weren't any of those enough to make this an issue? Infrastructure has been a huge party-line fight in the Minnesota legislature, but I don't know that most people heard anything other than the gas tax might go up. It was reported on: the StarTribune has done great work digging up warnings the state got, the governor calling Democrats "dumb" and "obsessed" over this issue, and they pulled much of it from their archives, so I can't say it wasn't reported.
I'm sure any of us can think of other examples, like why did the Walter Reed scandal have such effect that high ranking heads rolled for the first time in a Bush scandal, but so many other scandals, even those regarding the treatment of soldiers and veterans, went nowhere.
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What I still haven't heard from any Democrat
I haven't decided who I'm supporting in the primaries. One thing I'm waiting for is for some presidential candidate to say that he or she is not running for king, that Bush and Cheney have grabbed too much power, it's not what the founders fought a revolution for, and that he/she will work to roll back these powers and make sure that the president is accountable. That if the president believes that Congress has unconstitutionally usurped presidential power, the courts are the proper referee.
This is why it won't do for the Democrats to just let the clock run out on the Bush administration: the damage is permanent.