white house shadows who hide behind closed doors

The Democratic-controlled Congress helped the Bush administration strike another blow against the Constitution today when it voted to grant telecommunication companies retroactive immunity for spying on American citizens for the federal government, and broadening the domestic surveillance powers of the executive branch.

"The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation," said Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, the only senator who voted against the Patriot Act in 2001. "The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home."
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California lawmaker Barbara Lee referred to the days of J. Edgar Hoover and concluded, "This bill scares me."

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Washington) slammed retroactive amnesty, asking "Don't we realize there are some lines we should never cross?"

But the short debate and quick scheduling made it clear that the House leadership was confident the measure would easily pass, thus sparing conservative Democrats from campaign ads in the fall attacking them for not being tough on surveillance.

I don't see how someone can argue that this isn't a horrible thing. By definition, the very fact that Congress had to vote to grant telecom companies retroactive immunity means they were breaking the law; which also means that whoever ordered the companies to break the law--the Bush administration--are guilty as well.

Even if trust the Bush administration and don't think they would use these powers for ill, how can you be okay with the precedent this sets? All it takes is for a would-be tyrant to get into office, and all the groundwork has already been put into place. This should have nothing to do with allegiances to political parties.

Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats who have continued to give the Bush administration a free pass to violate the Constitution should be ashamed, not to mention removed from office. They are either cowards for being too afraid to oppose Bush, or they are crooks and villains guilty of greed and a lust for more power at the expense of our liberties--in other words, they are cut from the same cloth as Bush, Cheney, and the rest. It's time to start holding our elected leaders accountable; they are in Washington to look after our interests, not their own. Steve Chabot will never get another vote of mine until he stops toeing the Republican Party line and starts voting for the Constitution. Even Barack Obama disappointingly seems to be too afraid to disagree with the Democratic majority. Some "change" that is. It's truly a sad state of affairs when Dennis Kucinich is one of the most rational, patriotic politicians in the federal government by actually standing up in defense of the Constitution.



Why are we so willing to impeach a president for lying about oral sex, but not for repeatedly violating the Constitution? Which one of these actions truly represents "high crimes and misdemeanors"?

I think George Orwell could see the future when he wrote 1984, he was just off the mark by about twenty-five years.