There’s a lot of debate going on in the House and Senate about making changes to FISA, allowing illegal acts of wiretapping and surveillance programs conducted in the past to retroactively become legal.
Don’t fall for it. Pass no such laws.
If George W. Bush thinks it’s so damn important, then he can issue a Presidential pardon to the telecoms and take the political heat for doing so. But don’t let him try to trick you into doing his dirty work for him. Let him take it on the chin. Don’t enable his lawbreaking.
Or do you agree with Richard Nixon when he said that if the President does it, that means it’s not illegal?
From what I’ve heard, whatever is being discussed in Congressional circles would also effectively cut any civil suits against the Telecoms off at the ankles. I don’t think a Pardon could accomplish that, which is probably one of the reasons that there is so much juice behind getting it done in Congress. Well, that plus pardons can have more political consequences while acts of Congress effectively spread the blame and provide more cover.
I understand the spreading of blame– what I can’t understand is why Congress would want to share the blame with anybody, particularly this President.
I agree with your sentiments, Mr. Hauman. Please don’t mistake my speculation on what’s going on for an endorsement of it. I don’t think that you were taking it that way, but I wanted to be clear on that point.
I read a few political blogs (Glenn Greenwald, Digby, Anonymous Liberal, Baloon Juice) and Greenwald has talked with some of the actual Congressmen working on this. I hesitate to put words in his mouth but, as far as he can tell, key Democrats are going to push to have this done. The why of it was as baffling to him as it is to me (and you, it seems) but that seems to be how it’s going. If forced to hazard a guess, I’d say the Democrats have been promised some quid pro quo for this, but I can’t imagine what it would be. I simply can’t see an Administration as childishly stubborn as Bush’s being willing to give up anything that would be remotely close to caving on this. At least I can’t see them making a promise to the Dems about something significant that they had any intention of actually honoring…
As time goes on, I find the notion that the Administration was spying on Congress since 9/11, if not before, and has been using blackmail to keep the Democrats (and Repbulican) in line less and less absurd. I still don’t believe that, but these days I might not check someone espousing that idea for a tinfoil hat…