White House Agrees to Spy Law Change

This is just spectacular. Let’s read it together.

WASHINGTON - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Thursday to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps.

At the same time, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he had worked out an agreement with the White House to consider legislation and provide more information to Congress on the eavesdropping program. The panel’s top Democrat, who has requested a full-scale investigation, immediately objected to what he called an abdication of the committee’s responsibilities.

Ah, isn’t that cozy and oh, so sweet? So, the Republicans go behind doors with their oh-so-honest leader and come out with assurances that they’ll be fully informed of the operations of a spy program that the president has kept from them for years. Of course, we know that Bush and his team are going to be completely forthcoming with all of the vital information. We just all need to trust him.

This news came right after a federal judge ordered the DoJ to cooperate with the Freedom of Information Act and hand over documents detailing the program.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that a private group will suffer irreparable harm if the documents it has been seeking since December are not processed promptly under the Freedom of Information Act. He gave the Justice Department 20 days to respond to the request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

According to the article the DoJ is still deciding how to proceed with this case. I guess just coming out and obeying a court order is out of the question. We wouldn’t want a government agency like the Department of Justice following the law. No doubt they’ll be taking that one to a higher court (good thing Roberts and Alito are there now).

As for FISA, there are still plans to exclude the president’s illegal surveillance from the law. It certainly doesn’t look like there’s going to much investigation into the legality of the program as it stands now. I’m no legal expert, but it seems to me that if it’s against the law now then it will still be a crime when they change the law. For instance, if they outlaw shoplifting today, those caught yesterday will still stand trial.

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, said the White House had applied heavy pressure to committee Republicans to prevent them from conducting thorough oversight. He said legislation can’t be considered by the full Senate because lawmakers don’t have enough information.

I’m curious as to what was said to convince these Republicans. What promises were made to deny the American people the right to know if their president is a criminal? What blackmail was used to compromise the very system that supposedly makes us better than the rest of the world? How much political capital was spent to secure this “pardon” of the president and his cronies? We’ll never know because the cowards who rule us were hiding in their little cave like a filthy band of thieves plotting their next move.

Roberts indicated it may be possible “to fix” the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize the president’s program. Perino said the White House considers suggestions put forward by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, the starting point, particularly his proposal to create a special subcommittee on Capitol Hill that would regularly review the program.

I can understand adding wording to include cell phones, internet, etc. But what other kind of “fix” is he talking about? Oh yeah, the part that makes it illegal for the president of the United States to spy on his citizens without a warrant. the fixing the wording that allows the government to get a warrant 72 hours after surveillance has begun. Honestly, though, if you’re listening to someone’s phone calls and monitoring their emails you should be able to gather enough evidence to either charge them or leave them alone in that time period. Doesn’t seem that the NSA is up to that, or the president doesn’t trust them to be able to tell- because that’s just not enough time for them.

But wait. Maybe it’s not the time frame their worried about, perhaps it’s other wording. Perhaps our government doesn’t want to have to pretend that the Americans they’re spying on are actually terrorists or something equally heinous. They’d like to legally put all who dissent under the microscope. Then maybe we’ll all just shut the hell up and go with the flow. If I’m emailing my also-American-friend across the street then they are less likely to get a warrant to read those emails, as the law stands right now. If we’re trying to gather support for impeachment they can’t shut us down, as the law stands right now. That’s the kind of wording they want changed. That’s the “fix” they want.

There is some good news, though. According to the article Sen.Specter is drafting legislation that would require the FISA court to review the president’s program and determine its constitutionality. His committe will continue to investigative hearings at the end of the month. The Justice Department is pressuring him not to call John Ashcroft or James Comfey (Ashcroft’s deputy) to testify. Supposedly they are also protected under executive priviledge. It seems that it would be just a waste of time to question them. I’m thinking that there aren’t any really good skeletons in Sen.Specter’s closet because he doesn’t seem as cooperative as my own senator, Mike DeWine.

I honestly don’t care how tired people of are hearing this- but if DeWine’s legislation passes then we are that much closer to fascism. Here’s hoping that they can hold that off until November when we can get some new blood in Washington. Maybe someone who really cares about this country, it’s citizens, and it’s Constitution.

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