Terrible President, Extraordinary Con Man
President Bush signed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that was passed by the Senate on Wednesday with the help of, as Paul Krugman put it, the “coalition of the craven” Democrats.
Bush gave a short speech before signing the bill that basically went like this: “FEAR! FEAR! FEAR! I WILL PROTECT YOU!” But because his fascist regime needs help from telecommunications corporations to gather phone records, emails, and other forms of electronic communications, and he doesn’t want any citizens checking up on the legality of whatever he’s doing, he added:
“This law will ensure that those companies whose assistance is necessary to protect the country will themselves be protected from lawsuits from past or future cooperation with the government.”
And that is how the Bush Administration operates. Scare people. Tell them spying is necessary to protect them. Claim presidential power to ignore laws or articles of The Constitution that might hinder him. Get corporations to go along with his plans. Grant retroactive immunity to them and everyone else involved. All is well, see? No laws were broken because now the laws that were in place at the time the laws were broken don’t matter anymore. Those OLD laws were for pre-9/11 Americans. We are the new fearful Americans, and we will sell our liberty to a con man so that we can feel safe.
How does the most unpopular president in modern history continue to get away with this total disregard of law and all the principles of individual freedom and liberty? Well I guess that has to be because congress, lead by the “opposition party” Democrats, is disliked even more than the president. Why are they loathed? You have to ask? Because they are weak! They are weak minded and weak willed, and they are afraid. Their weak little minds tell them that it’s political suicide to vote against a bill that helps our government thwart terrorist attacks, even if it contains what is clearly a CYA clause for the president, his staff, and hall his corporate sponsors.
We the people have just been shafted and we know it.
So who will stick up for us if your representatives in Congress won’t?
The ACLU and The Nation:
A few hours after Bush’s signing, The Nation joined with the ACLU in a lawsuit filed in the US District Court (Southern District) of New York challenging the constitutionality of the Act. The Nation is suing on behalf of itself, our staff and two of our contributing writers–Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein.
…
Hedges, in his reporting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the so-called war on terror regularly communicates with sources in countries like Palestine, Iran, Syria and Sudan. Klein, in her essential critique of the extension of radical free-market capitalism and the resurgence of imperial militarism, routinely communicates with journalists, political activists, human rights campaigners in the Middle East, South America, and around the world. Sadly, we believe that the communications critical to their reporting could and would be monitored under the FISA Amendments Act. Certainly scores of other journalists would shoulder the same risk.
We are proud, then, to join with other patriots who understand the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the nation against terrorism can be fulfilled without sacrificing the constitutional liberties that make the US worth defending.
We at harikari.com ask you to support them in their cause – OUR CAUSE. Please donate to the ACLU and keep reading The Nation and spreading the word to anyone who will listen.
