Daily Archives: May 2, 2008

A New Twist In The FISA Fight

In August of last year, Congress passed an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 known as the “Protect America Act of 2007,” — which some say is a misnomer since a more appropriate name for the amendment would be the “Police America Act” — that gives the President virtually unlimited power with no oversight whatsoever. Very bad idea, as the past seven plus years have shown.

Fortunately, the amendment was set to expire in six months. When it came up for renewal this past February, Congress was deadlocked so they tried to extend the expiration date before it expired, but President Bush vetoed it. It expired amongst false, terror-filled cries intended to make everyone believe we were all going to die, or ‘Al-Qaeda’ was going to attack us…the usual B.S. The House is again trying to reach a compromise with the Senate, but it could take a while.

The Senate passed a bill containing retroactive immunity for Telecoms who cooperated with the Bush administration’s post-9/11 surveillance authorized by President Bush. Fortunately, The House was smart enough — after receiving tremendous pressure from the public not to pass it. As usual, House Republicans and the rest of the Bush propaganda team are up to their usual lies, deceptions and scare tactics to try to force their version through the House.

More than 40 lawsuits against the Telecoms are pending, basically being stalled until Bush has scared Congress and the public enough that Congress is willing to pass the legislation granting retroactive immunity to the Telecoms. In reality, retroactive immunity would be granted to the Bush administration for blatantly breaking multiple laws and would keep every illicit activity covered up so no one would ever know the truth, when the illegal activities actually started, or the depth of illegality. Again, very bad idea.

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