“Americans have a right to expect Congress to give our intelligence officials what they need to do their jobs.”
Funny, but I’ve looked through the Constitution, and I just can’t find that particular legal right established anywhere. The Constitution is where Americans derive their rights, so if we do have this supposed right, it would be there, but it’s not.
What we do have, in fact, are the following rights, established in the fourth amendment, part of the Bill of Rights:
” The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
What this part of the Constitution guarantees is that Americans have the right to prevent “intelligence officials” from having what they “need to do their jobs” if those officials cannot prove that they actually need it. Way back at the birth of the USA as we know it, members of Congress thought it was extremely important to prevent spy masters (that’s what “intelligence officials” are) from abusing their powers.
There is no right in the Constitution for Congress to give government spies any powers they ask for. In fact, Congress is explicitly forbidden from taking that approach.
His statement during the debate over the FISA Amendments Act reveals that Senator Mitch McConnell either doesn’t know what the Constitution actually says, or he doesn’t care. Whichever is the case, Senator McConnell has proved himself to be incompetent to serve as a member of the United States Senate.
United States Senators, after all, swear a solemn oath to defend the Constitution from its domestic enemies. If Senator McConnell doesn’t even care to know what’s in the Constitution, he isn’t capable of fulfilling that oath.
It’s been a week since the Senate voted to approve the FISA Amendments Act, and a week since I wrote an article here at That’s My Congress. I’ve been too disgusted with the outcome of that vote to return to the keyboard.
Disgust remains, but anger grows. The FISA Amendments Act takes the heart of the Constitution. No checks and balances. Retroactive laws. No equal protection under the law. The fourth amendment trashed.
The following are the United States Senators who voted for this betrayal of the Constitution. 20 of these 69 senators are Democrats. Without the Democrats helping out, the Republicans couldn’t have gotten the FISA Amendments Act passed. Which ones are the Republicans, and which ones are the Democrats? You figure it out. I can’t tell the difference anymore.
Well, now that the final Senate vote on the FISA Amendments Act has been taken, that’s changed… sort of.
First, Sheldon Whitehouse took to the floor of the Senate and condemned the FISA Amendments Act. He called it a “naked intrusion” of Congress into judicial responsibilities, “picking winners and losers as we like”. He said that the government spying programs the FISA Amendments Act legalizes “broke faith with the American people”. He blasted the FISA Amendments Act, warning that the law, “misapplies the substantial evidence standard, trespasses constitutional boundaries, and breaks dangerous new ground in American law.”
Senator Whitehouse represents Rhode Island - a progressive state. There is no plausible argument for the claim that Whitehouse needed to vote for the FISA Amendments Act because of constituent pressure. Whitehouse merely capitulated to George W. Bush for personal reasons. For that reason, Sheldon Whitehouse has been declared the sorriest senator ever.
We have been writing about the FISA Amendments Act for two weeks now. We’ve covered every angle of it that we can think of, explaining the many ways in which the proposed law wrecks the Constitution’s power to protect American citizens from government abuse.
Now is the final hour. At 10:00 AM Eastern Time today, the Senate will begin debate on the FISA Amendments Act, and a vote is likely to come soon afterwards.
The FISA Amendments Act establishes the Attorney General as a spymaster beyond the reach of the law, with powers to target American citizens within the United States for political or personal reasons.
Any senator who votes to approve the FISA Amendments Act may be fairly considered a traitor to the cause of freedom. Yes, it really is that simple.
Call your two U.S. senators at (202) 224-3121 - please. Ask them to vote NO on the FISA Amendments Act.
Rhode Island Democrats need to call the office of Sheldon Whitehouse and remind him to take his backbone with him when he goes to work to at the United States Senate tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the scheduled date for the Senate’s final vote on the FISA Amendments Act, a bill that would endorse George W. Bush’s program to spy without any oversight on the personal communications of millions of Americans. The FISA Amendments Act also violates the Constitution’s ban on ex post facto laws, the fourth amendment in the Bill of Rights, the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, and the system of check and balances calibrated throughout the Constitution.
A day before a vote on the FISA Amendments Act, Senator Whitehouse’s aides say that he is still trying to make up his mind about what to do about the FISA Amendments Act tomorrow. They say that he’s considering amendments removing telecommunications immunity, as if that would make up for everything else that’s wrong with the proposed law.
The FISA Amendments Act is corrupt beyond amendment. So, Rhode Island, it’s time to call Sheldon Whitehouse at (202) 224-2921 and tell him that you want him to defend the Constitution and vote NO on the FISA Amendments Act.
I live in New York State, and am represented by Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton in the United States Senate. I’ve called the offices of both about the FISA Amendments Act.
After an initial uncertainty, Senator Schumer joined Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd in an attempted filibuster of the proposed law. He clearly is in opposition to the bill.
Senator Clinton is not.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that she will vote for the FISA Amendments Act on Tuesday. It means that she refuses to say how she will vote. Her aides describe this silence as “listening to her constituents”, so that she can make up her mind.
In the case of the FISA Amendments Act, listening to constituents isn’t the way to make the right decision. That’s because the issue is not political. It’s constitutional.
The FISA Amendments Act is profoundly, thoroughly unconstitutional and anticonstitutional. It makes the fourth amendment in the Bill of Rights irrelevant, completely ignores the ban on ex post facto laws, slams the concept of equal protection under the law, and generally wrecks the system of checks and balances between what are supposed to be three coequal branches of government.
The FISA Amendments Act essentially gives George W. Bush everything that he wanted - operationally unlimited spying powers held by his political appointee, the Attorney General, and supervised only by one person in the federal government. That one person is the fox guarding the henhouse: The Attorney General.
That’s like appointing the CEO of ExxonMobil as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
If she cares one jot about the Oath of Office she took when joining the United States Senate, Hillary Clinton ought not to base her decision on what will make most of her constituents happy. She ought to base her decision on what the Constitution requires.
If Senator Clinton decides that he constituents don’t like the Constitution’s protections from unreasonable search and seizure, ex post facto laws, and so on, then she can represent those radical opinions by introducing a constitutional amendment to do away with those things.
The truth is, though, that New Yorkers would not support such a betrayal of American freedom - just as they do not support the FISA Amendments Act.
Senator Clinton, it’s time to do your job. It is time for you to stop cowering behind your aides, stand up, and oppose the unjust FISA Amendments Act.
Al Franken isn’t just a candidate for the United States Senate. He’s a former writer, and stand up comic, and talk show host. Al Franken knows how to talk.
So why is it, with two and a half weeks since the House of Representatives made the text of the FISA Amendments Act available and then rushed it through to passage less than 24 hours later, Al Franken still hasn’t told voters whether he supports the proposed law? Why is it that, with the United States Senate scheduled to vote on the FISA Amendments Act this coming Tuesday, Al Franken still says nothing?
Dan Maffei, running for the House of Representatives in the 25th congressional district in upstate New York, doesn’t have the big money connections Al Franken has. He doesn’t have the kind of experience Al Franken has speaking in public.
Yet, Dan Maffei has had the courage Al Franken hasn’t had. Dan Maffei has spoken out against the unjust and unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act. Maffei writes,
“National security is essential to protecting our freedoms, but that doesn’t mean we must sacrifice those very same freedoms because the Bush administration fails to respect the Constitution. Granting amnesty to telecom companies would set a precedent that would allow others to arbitrarily ignore the constitution. No one should be above the law in America. Because of this I would not have supported the recent legislation.”
Thanks, Mr. Maffei, for doing what politicians like Al Franken won’t. Thanks for telling Americans where you stand.
The FISA Amendments Act is the most controversial, timely, and far-reaching bill to reach the floor of Congress this year. The proposed law unravels much of the Constitution of the United States of America, and many experts say that it’s completely unnecessary.
But, I wanted to know what congressional candidate Nick Sparks had to say about the FISA Amendments Act. Does he support its measures giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies? Does Sparks support the aspects of the law that enable physical searches of Americans’ homes by government agents without any search warrants or judicial approval?
Given that Nick Sparks is running to represent Alabama’s 4th District in the U.S. Congress, you’d think that Sparks would have issued a statement on the issue. Sadly, that seems not to be the case. There is no reference to the FISA Amendments Act on the Sparks for Congress at all. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much news of any kind from the Nick Sparks campaign since he won the Democratic primary.
When I called the Nick Sparks campaign to get information about the candidate’s position on the FISA Amendments Act, I wasn’t able to get through. The campaign telephone number, listed as 205-221-1065 on the web site, has been taken out of service.
Is Nick Sparks serious about running for Congress, or is he just playing around?
One of the excuses that Obama apologists give for Barack Obama’s shocking support for George W. Bush’s FISA Amendments Act is that it’s a necessary move to pick up votes in states where Republican candidates have won in the past. The idea is that voters in these states will only support Barack Obama if Obama starts acting like a Republican.
There’s another assumption inherent in these arguments as well - the argument that Democrats living in red states are so used to Republican politics that they won’t mind if Barack Obama supports extreme laws like the FISA Amendments Act.
Is it true? Do Democrats in red states just not mind when Democratic politicians vote to revoke their constitutional rights?
Let’s not speculate. Let’s examine the facts. Let’s look at the reddest of the red states: Alabama. Do Democrats in Alabama not care that Barack Obama has supported big government warrantless wiretapping of their telephones through the FISA Amendments Act?
The facts don’t support such a contention. The facts indicate that Democrats are as furious with Barack Obama for supporting the FISA Amendments Act as Democrats elsewhere around the country.
Consider the following statements that were recently left by different Alabama Democrats at the Left in Alabama political site:
One sent the following letter to the Obama for President campaign:
“The unconscionable, immoral and unconstitutional FISA bill just passed by the House must be defeated by the Senate. There is, and can be, no excuse for you, as our Democratic Party candidate for President, to support this abomination. It is well to say that politics is complicated and thiose of us who are out in the heartland don’t understand the ramifications, but we understand the values of this great nation, we understand the implications of this horrendous bill, and we understand that we have been supporting you because of the promise of “hope” and “change”. Don’t sell us out before you even win the office.
There is no way I can support John McCain for president, so I will not even pretend that could happen, but your failure to actively and wholeheartedly oppose this Republican assault on our rights as citizens will surely make me take a hard look at Ralph Nader. Do I think he can win? Of course not, but MY conscience will be clear. Will yours, Senator?”
Another reader left a short comment entitled, “This is crap”, reading,
“Why should we work our hearts out for these people when they are so eager to sell America down the river? Yes, Senator Obama, I’m talking to You!
I expect this nonsense from Jeff Sessions. From you, I expect more.”
When people in Alabama talk about being sold down the river, they know what they’re talking about.
Voters in Alabama wanted change, and they believed in the message of Barack Obama, until they saw that Obama plans on giving America the same old dirty politics of fear that Alabamans have been stuck with for generations. Another Alabama Democrat reacted to Barack Obama’s support of the FISA Amendments Act by writing in resignation,
“So much for the change rhetoric. It looks to me like business as usual.”
Please, let’s hear no more about how Barack Obama needed to support the FISA Amendments Act in order to get the support of red state America. Red state Americans oppose the FISA Amendments Act too, and they see through Barack Obama’s crass maneuvering to pander to the right.
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