David Ignatius has a OpEd in the Washington Post about finding the middle ground when it comes to giving up our civil rights for safety from Terrorists. I found it deeply disturbing in tone. The reasoning alone that we should give up any Civil Rights is wrong to me. We have given up too much over the last 50 yrs or so already. This is what is being done way too often in the name of fear. When you read the numbers released over the last couple days that 100,000 Americans are killed a yr, and not a one by a foreign terrorist, it make me wonder why we are even having this debate. That is the basics of where I look at this from.
David starts the piece with a simple statement we can all agree with, it is also the setup. The sentence is, "When a nation can't solve the problems that concern its citizens, it's in trouble." We all know this country is in some deep trouble and GW Bush is responsible for most of it.
The interesting part of this piece is what David lets out that I had never heard before, but maybe you have. It's about the deal being made by the DC Elites behind closed doors. More on the flip.
Ignatius talks a lot about the "Middle Ground" and how Bush and Congress, along with DNI McConnell need to come to some compromise about the Warrantless Wiretap Program. Warrantless, just the word send shivers thru me, and hopefully you. Our Founding Fathers lived though that kind of authority and moved to the Americas to escape it. Never should we violate their wishes and wisdom over this point. Never.
Second thing I found even more of a violation is the giving of immunity to those that so weakly surrendered those rights without asking me or you. They broke a sacred trust when they did that. When we send in the payment for our phone service we are paying them to protect the information they are entrusted with, a contract if you will. They have breeched the contract and now when caught, they want to walk away undamaged in anyway. Is Congress really going to let that happen ? It seems like it.
At that point, the Bush administration decided to seek new legislation formally authorizing the program, and the horse-trading began. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a team of Democrats bargaining with McConnell. The administration had two basic demands -- that Congress approve the existing practice of using U.S. communications hubs to collect intelligence about foreigners, and that Congress compel telecommunications companies to turn over records so they wouldn't face lawsuits for aiding the government. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The Democrats agreed to these requests on Aug. 2. They also accepted three other eleventh-hour demands from McConnell, including authority to extend the anti-terrorist surveillance rules to wider foreign intelligence tasks. Pelosi and the Democrats thought they had a deal, but that evening McConnell told them that the "other side" -- meaning the White House -- wanted more concessions. The deal collapsed, and the White House, sensing it had the upper hand, pushed through a more accommodating Senate bill that would have to be renewed in six months.
The Democrats agreed to these requests on Aug. 2. Did any of you know that Congress had gone along with the Immunity ? Read this sentence again and see if that is what it really what I think it does."that Congress compel telecommunications companies to turn over records so they wouldn't face lawsuits for aiding the government." We can safely assume one our Gov. has those records they will go down into the pit of Secrecy and Cheneys forever locked safe of mystery, never to be seen again. Mr.Ignatius is just fine with all this, are you ?
Now McConnell and the Democrats are back in the cage. A key administration demand is retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that agreed to help the government in what they thought was a legal program. That seems fair enough. So does the Democratic demand that the White House turn over documents that explain how these programs were created.
Fair ? Fair to whom ? It is only fair in that it not only lets the Telcos off the hook, but also Bushco. Without those records Bush and his minions can never be exposed. Unless the Public knows what was done and to whom in secret, while they were breaking the law, they cannot be held accountable. Something that has happen way to often in this country with our Presidents. One only has to look back at any number of scandals Iran-Contra, J. Edgar Hoover, Watergate, to see that people have gotten away with too many broken laws.
It is time to put a halt to this. Nancy Pelosi refuses to let us Impeach Bush for reasons known only to her. That has left us with only one option, to go after Bush after his term is up. If these records disappear, that will be damn near impossible . I is obvious to me Congress has made up it's mind to let both the Telcos and Bush off the hook and the shows we have witnessed in the hearings about Immunity is just for show. We will know for sure when the voting is done. I predict a very sad day in the history of our country on that day. There is no time like the present to let your Congress People know how you feel about this.