More astute observers than I have pointed out a disturbing pattern of government behavior: The Executive asserts powers that are questionable. Congressmembers raise questions. Congressional leadership acts to make the actions of the Executive retroactively legal.
The Democratic Party was handed the reins of power to stop this –and yet it continues. Sen. Harry Reid pushed an immunity bill to the Senate floor and 19 Democratic Senators voted with the entire GOP to pass it.
I ask you, how could this happen?
With telecom immunity, the White House would close the only viable avenue the public has for holding people accountable for wiretapping abuses. It does not appear that the Senate has the stomach to rein in the White House, nor does it seem likely that Congressional requests for information on wiretapping activities will produce anything in the foreseeable future.
Again, I ask: how could this happen?
On this one item, this ONE time - surely the House can stand up and say "No" to this President. He is staggeringly unpopular – and opposing him would place the house on the side of the masses.
Sen. Feingold did his duty and he lost. My other senator sold my privacy out. I'm asking you as my representative to *do something.*
I am sure you know (but I will say it anyway) the virtues and values that define this nation can go away if all we do is comfort ourselves with the fact that they are written down somewhere. In order to matter - to exist in any meaningful way - they must be defended *in public* whenever they are challenged.
Force your opponents to public debate on this issue. Expose their blatant mischaracterizations of what immunity is and is not.
Most of all do not let the House leadership sell us out like Sen. Reid.
1 comment:
as my husband, 'an unhelpful lot', says: the telecoms having all kinds of info about us is not the same as the government having all kinds of info about us. because the telecoms can't drag us out of our beds in the middle of the night and ship us off to guantanamo with no recourse to counsel and no access to any evidence against us. (which, imo, means there is none, or what they have is totally lame, but i digress.) granting immunity to the telecoms is tantamount to making the telecoms equal to the government. which is scarier than cr@p.
that our democratic congress has done nothing but suck up to the despotic leader of the free world, despite our having elected its members to do precisely the opposite (did they somehow think we elected them for some other reason?) leads me to think one of two things. either 1. there's a big pile of empty pods in some storage facility somewhere, or 2. a couple of years ago a whoooooole bunch of empty kool-aid packets were dumped into government recycling bins.
in fact, i fear that the telecoms have simply made the house, and the senate, their bitch. (which is annoying, because we hired them to be our bitch.)
sincerely,
an unhelpful lot's wife
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