Roll Over, Harry! Good Boy!

Because instead of supporting the proposed bill out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which lacks this small feature called 'telecom immunity,' Reid has chosen to ignore over a dozen of his Democratic colleagues (including all of the major candidates) and support a version of the bill forwarded by the Senate Intelligence Committee - which grants yet another whitewashing of illegalities perpetrated by the Bush Administration.

Gee, you won't impeach the bastards, you won't stand firm on your promise of 'no funding,' and you keep giving Mr. Bush everything he asks for.

This has happened enough times that we can conclude you're either stupid, spineless, or complicit in the rape of everything America stands for.

And, no, it's not about 9/11 or fighting terrorism. It never has been.

The NSA is reported to have prepared a transition report for the Bush Administration in 2000, in which they said the Agency must become a, 'powerful, permanent presence' on the commercial communications network.

This is in keeping with Vice President Cheney's remarks in the wake of the warrantless wiretaps first coming to light. Cheney suggested that if we'd had such sweeping surveillance prior to 9/11, that they could have prevented it. (So ... you wanted this kind of power before the incident that caused you to actually implement it in the first place.)

We are not fighting terrorism. We are dealing with criminals who claim executive privilege to cover up their own misdeeds, but expect the public to roll over and allow egregious invasions of privacy.

We are dealing with people who do not understand the Constitution, whether we're talking about Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, or about habeas corpus.

We continue to treat them as if they are deserving of our trust - trust that is necessary for the health and welfare of our government - yet we are repeatedly and consistently disappointed. We are told we must surrender these freedoms and get used to a changed world. In fact, we're told that simply questioning these actions is tantamount to aiding and abetting our enemies.

None of their arguments hold much water. It's all fear-mongering and contradictory sloganeering. We're fighting the enemy in Iraq, it's said, so that we don't have to fight them here. Yet, for some reason, we're supposed to believe these clowns are making frequent calls to agents and allies within our borders. Agents and allies that turn out to be clueless wannabes who have to be coached through 'loyalty oaths to al-Qaeda' by undercover agents, take video of their weapons practice to a photo kiosk to duplicate it, and think they can obtain weapons by trading their stereo equipment.

We're told that revealing any details of such programs gives information away to the enemy, when only an idiot would assume we aren't conducting surveillance. We even apply this foolishness to the 'debate' about torture - we can't admit we're using waterboarding, because then the enemy would start training to resist it. (Gee, do you think they've figured out we might and do it anyway?)

The Bush Administration wants you to be afraid. They want you to be desperate and feel powerless, so that you'll sign off on their antics.

But why, when they've shown their penchant for chasing their own personal fantasies, should we even consider that they're right, or that they're capable of defending our civil liberties? Remember, FISA as it stands was too much paperwork for Alberrto Gonzales. And Michael Hayden didn't know the difference between 'probable cause' and 'reasonable suspicion'.

It's time for America to stop being afraid.

The Ministry has received 0 comment(s) on this topic.