Yep, I said it, right in the headline. I'm pissed off. We have a Democratic majority in the Senate, and a bill that according to Constitutional scholar, Jonathan Turley, "eviscerates" the 4th amendment, passed anyway. As far as Turley, and myself, and many other liberals are concerned, the purpose of this bill was not the public interest. It was to cover a lot of political ass, and--for reasons we still don't fully understand--protect big corporations.
Remind me again, is the President and Congress supposed to defend the corporations, or is it the Constitution? Whatever, they're both C-words, right? We can only guess at the reasons that 1/3 of Democrats voted for this travesty, along with--what--all of the Republicans? Blackmail, backroom deals, fear of being labelled unpatriotic. The result in any case, is that President Bush, with an approval rating in the high twenties at best, got exactly what he wanted from a Democratic Congress. Here are just a couple of things that suck about this:
- 70% of the Senate does not know what the telecommunications companies are being pardoned for. They've been given retroactive immunity for breaking the law, and 70 Senators do not know what those infractions even were.
- Warrantless wiretapping by the Bush Administration did not begin after 9/11, it began in February 2001. And yet, this change in the FISA law is being justified as a response to 9/11. It's just a flat lie.
There's more, but I'm done. I'm pissed, but I'm done. For now.
