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by Charles Carreon
02/02/08
Hello, Americans.
Are you worried about the way our country’s being run lately? Do you get
the feeling that corporate interests control everything, and the little
person has no say? Are you afraid that both parties have sold out to the
lobbyists? Are you sure that the noise about Britney hides something
worse than a failing economy, a failed war, and a collapsing
infrastructure?
If so, I think
it’s time for us to discuss the Protect America Act. This Protect
America Act is the largest legislative cowflop I have ever seen, and if
the secret jockeying around its enactment and re-enactment are any
indication, it is a central part of The Bush Amnesty Package.
The Protect
America Act, enacted on August 1, 2007, was born with one of the
shortest lifespans ever set on federal law – it was good for only six
months, and thus was set to expire on February 1st, three days ago. This
Protect America Act is so important to the president that on January
25th he said he’d use his veto to kill it if the Congress renewed it for
a mere thirty days. He wants it made permanent, so America will be
permanently protected. But just six days later, the Great Decider
decided differently, and sat down in Las Vegas to sign a fifteen-day
extension of the Act that Congress had quietly slipped through both the
House and the Senate without telling any of their constituents.
Now let’s discuss
what the Protect America Act is, and why I think it’s really the Bush
Amnesty Bill. Most average people haven't paid too much attention to the
NSA, that's the National Security Agency — the same NSA that Oliver
North used as a cover for dealing cocaine and weapons on behalf of the
Nicaraguan fascists we called “contras.” They don't think much about it,
because it acts in secret. Sometimes, apparently even before September
11, 2002, the NSA secretly went to AT&T and Verizon and a bunch of other
telecommunications companies, the “telcos,” as they're known, and got
them to agree to let the NSA tap the telephones and read the email of
American citizens. Some evidence has been revealed by an AT&T
whistleblower, who says AT&T shared 100% of its customer information and
communications with the NSA. That, in case you don't know it, violates
the warrant requirement of the 4th Amendment, the one that keeps our
“persons, houses, papers and effects” safe from warrantless searches.
There's a special
court that the Bush NSA could have asked to issue those warrants. It's
called the “FISA court,” that stands for Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, and it always issues warrants for wiretaps when
requested. FISA proceedings are secret, and have been used to bug the
phones of mobsters and narcotrafficers very effectively for years. Not
good enough for the Bush NSA. They don't want to respect any law. They
just went to AT&T and Verizon and said, “Who's your Daddy?” And the
telcos just gave it up for poppa. This is what we call the “domestic
spying scandal.”
There's about 50 lawsuits pending against AT&T, Verizon, and other
telcos for selling out their customers in this way. I, personally, have
already called AT&T and asked for my money back for all the time they
let the NSA invade my privacy. I told the AT&T lady that, if I'd checked
into a hotel and discovered my room had two-way mirrors, I'd certainly
want a refund, and sue for invasion of privacy, too. Makes sense,
doesn't it?
But the issue runs
far deeper than the simple right to be free from having your privacy
invaded, which can be personally humiliating. The point is that the
government, especially, must not invade our privacy, because whenever
it does, it has run off the rails, and is doing something the Founding
Fathers never intended to permit, and erected the Fourth Amendment as a
barrier against – the King’s ruthless methods of putting down supposed
plots against “the Crown” by imprisoning people without charges, reading
their letters, and interrogating their friends and family. The 4th
Amendment is so precious to the American legal tradition that we let
criminals, even murderers, out of jail because the evidence against them
was seized without warrants. The current Supreme Court hasn’t changed
that. In courts across America, every day judges let drug dealers walk
without batting an eye when a narc makes a bust with evidence seized in
violation of the dealer’s privacy.
Nevertheless,
reading our emails and listening to our phone calls was such a priority
for the Bush gang that they just blithely committed a federal felony.
There is no reason to believe they’ve stopped reading our email, or that
their focus is on bomb-wielding terrorists. They know their real enemies
are votes, not bombs. Don’t forget what we learned in the Attorney-Gate
scandal. While the NSA was illegally wiretapping Americans, Alberto
Gonzales’ Department of Justice was filling the US Attorney ranks with
loyalists who would help local vote-rigging by three methods:
prosecuting Democratic candidates to slander them, challenging minority
voters with identification requirements, and not prosecuting Republican
vote-riggers. So how sure can you be that Republic dirty tricks
operatives haven’t already used this information to undermine our
electoral process?
The domestic
spying scandal really is bad news for Bush, which is why he’s doing
deals in Vegas. He and his spy-chiefs could end up answering charges for
conducting illegal wiretaps, the sort of charges currently pending
against Anthony Pellicano, the private investigator to the stars, who
made illegal wiretaps one of his prime offerings. Of course, these
prosecutions would be under Federal statute, 50 USC § 1809, the FISA
section that provides for 5 years in jail if a government employee
“intentionally engages in electronic surveillance ... except as
authorized by statute.” While it's ”a defense to a prosecution under
subsection (a) of this section that the defendant was a law enforcement
or investigative officer engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant
to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent
jurisdiction,“ that wouldn't give Bushco much comfort, would it, since
this is all about warrantless surveillance. But more than likely, as is
ever the case, the Bush gangsters would probably go down for obstruction
of justice and perjury for trying to cover it all up. These prosecutions
could sweep in Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Myers, Dick Cheney, maybe even
El Busho himself. Not a matter to be dealt with lightly.
You can hear Dick
Cheney thinking — and he knows something about avoiding prosecution,
having dodged a bullet with that Scooter Libby case, and letting Harry
Whittington take the blame for getting in the way of his birdshot in
that little hunting snafu down in Texas. This is not something you can
trust the federal judiciary on. Even Justice Roberts, Thomas, and Alito
might not save your ass, once you were out of office. They're on the
bench for life, and have short memories. No, better go to our pet
Congress, and get immunity for the telcos. That'll keep us safe, because
if you can't sue the telcos, you're not going to ever be able to pry
through NSA secrecy to find out whose ear was actually glued to the
receiver while all Americans chatted on gaily, oblivious to the fact that
Big Daddy Knows All.
When this was
first discovered by the press in December 2005, Congress pretended to
really care. But they got buffaloed by the White House into back-door
approving the program by way of the Protect America Act, which really
should've been called ”Protect The Administration Act.” Sponsored by
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, this injects weasel
words into the clear language of FISA, allowing warrantless surveillance
against anyone, get this — “reasonably believed to be located outside
the United States.” That means that as long as the Protect America Act
is in effect, FISA is gutted, because if one party to the conversation
is “reasonably believed” to be outside the United States, the entire
communication can be tapped without a warrant. With servers swapping
emails all over the world, and IP addresses the only clue as to their
real origin, a case could be made that any email might reasonably be, on
one end, coming from outside the US. And does the fact that you receive
spam from Nigeria open your whole inbox to surveillance? If so, and why
not, then privacy is toast! For an extra dose of irony, consider the
fact that Congressmen have communications with foreign-based people
every day – communications that they have authorized the Bush NSA to
read willy-nilly. Well, I guess that’s what happens when Congress
doesn’t have time to read the legislation, or consider its effects.
Are the Democrats
naïve? It hardly matters, for if so they were criminally negligent. The
Republicans broke the law as it existed, but Congress violated the
Constitution when it enacted the Protect America Act. These
“representatives” may as well have spilled the blood of the Founders of
this nation and spit on the Constitution. They have let the wolf of
tyranny in the door and watched it eat the babe of liberty. I guess
that’s why they only did it for six months. That salved their jaded
consciences some.
You may recall a
little dust-up in Congress over the passage of this Benedict Arnold
legislation, enough to get it enacted “temporarily,” good for only 180
days from the effective date of August 1, 2007. That meant it was due to
lapse on February 1, 2008. Good enough that Cheney, and all the other
Bush gang members, slept well through the holidays. And to avoid
disturbing that sleep, it's all been hush-hush since then. You didn't
exactly hear Rupert Murdoch breaking the news that the Protect America
Act was about to expire. The Republicans certainly haven't gone to the
electorate to plead their case for the extension of this rule. Sure,
it's a little hard to understand the legalese, but for heavens sakes,
The Protect America Act was about to expire!
Terrorists around the world are licking their chops, ready to send
emails stuffed with terrorist plans that no-one will even be able to
read! Presumably terrorists are holding their breath, just waiting to
see us drop our guard.
And yet, you
didn’t hear a word. Although this law is so important that on January
25th Bush threatened to veto a thirty-day version, demanding a permanent
extension, he didn’t even mention it once during his State of the Union
Address four days later, on January 29th. I suspect that on the 25th,
Bush was playing chicken with Reid, threatening to launch invective at
the Democrats in his State of the Union address for refusing to make
Protect America Act permanent. Bush apparently decided against that,
because during the Address, he talked a lot about protecting America,
without once referring to the Act itself.
It had been
allowed to vanish from the public radar screen. To be honest, I hadn’t
thought about when the Protect America Act was going to expire. The New
York Times had done nothing to disturb my ignorance. February 1st was
Friday. I was drinking coffee at Starbucks as usual, and there isn’t an
article in The Times about this relatively important topic. But someone
screwed up, because on page A12 of the New York Times, I stumbled over a
statement in an article entitled “Senate Democrats' Stimulus Plan Hits
Roadblock,” and it said, referring to Harry Reid, Democratic Senate
Majority Whip:
Mr. Reid said
late Thursday that he had reached agreement with Mr. McConnell on
amendments related to the proposed permanent extension of the
administration's terrorism surveillance program. Republican leaders had
viewed the agreement as a condition for moving the stimulus bill to the
floor.
That alarmed me.
Every time Harry Reid makes a deal with the devil, I mean the White
House, the people end up on the losing end. So I did what every red
blooded American blogger can do, and called up Reid's office. They all
said they didn't know about it, and had no response. I called Obama's office,
following up a lead that he'd skipped a vote on the issue, and they
admitted that he had, but also claimed he'd been present on Monday,
January 28th, and voted against domestic spying. So I looked up what his
vote was, and it wasn't against anything. It was FOR extending the
authorization by another 30 days. All the Democratic Senators voted the
same way. It seems as if the one thing the Democrats have no stomach for
is fighting TODAY. Kick the can down the road until the issue is
forgotten, and it can be compromised away without a fight.
Although she's the
head traitor in the House, and not a Senator, I figured Nancy Pelosi
would have the straight dope, but her people don't even answer the
phone. I talked to staff in Clinton's office, Kennedy's office, Max
Baucus' office, and many others. They all denied knowing what I was
talking about. I called one of the good guys on the issue — Sen.
Christopher Dodd, who keeps introducing legislation to kill the immunity
deal, but his people knew nothing. Of course I couldn't learn anything
from the bad guy, JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER of West Virginia, chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, who’s pushing hard for permanent adoption
of Protect America, and immunity for telcos. Stop me there — a
Rockefeller from West Virginia? I thought Rockefellers were New Yorkers.
Well, obviously he's not the child of any coal miner's daughter. At any
rate, he's the “Democrat” who's really behind all this. Some kinda
Democrats they make down in West Virginia. Would somebody go out to West
Virginia and yell down a coal mine — “Hey folks — the boss is tappin'
yer phone!” But Harry Reid's from Nevada, where you learn to watch your
back, so he's a little more careful when he sells out. That must be why
none of the Senate press offices could even tell me that the Protect
America Act had been extended by fifteen days the very day before. That,
and the fact that the President happened to be in Las Vegas when he
signed this legislation, which is kind of strange. Doesn’t he usually
sign bills in the Oval Office?
Can it be the case
that, while all the Washington Senatorial press offices basked in
blissful ignorance, Bush just happened to be in Nevada, Harry Reid’s
home state – to sign a 15-day extension of the Protect America Act, an
extension half as long as one he’d declared unacceptable just a week
prior? I mean, I know Harry Reid’s constituency is all based there, but
what, did some showgirls hold the president hostage and make him sign?
Even weirder, since when do we extend statutes suspending the
constitutional requirement of a warrant for a period of two weeks? What
the hell is going on here?
I’ll tell you
what’s going on. This fifteen-day extension shows the President and his
cronies are dealing very seriously on this issue. They know they could
go to jail, and give the whole witch-hunt-for-terrorists business a bad
name. Everything could unravel around this one. Meanwhile, the Democrats
are helping to keep the fire damped down over this domestic spying
thing, supposedly to come out of this Congressional session with a few
extra bucks for groceries and rent for regular folks. Remember,
everyone’s been quoting that Clinton-era saying, “It’s the economy,
stupid.” So in a deal that some might call cynical, Reid is getting a
few bucks for regular folks in exchange for cutting the Bush gang loose
for their crimes against our constitution, our privacy, our dignity as
Americans.
It is often said
that justice delayed is justice denied. Certainly it’s the purpose of
the Bush gang to deny Americans the justice that should be served on
them, and delay is their method. Harry Reid is ready to give them all
the delay they need. The deal he referred to having reached is contained
in Senate Bill 2557, that Reid introduced on January 28th. It would
extend the Protect America Act four months, until “July 1, 2009.” Hell
of a lot better than 15 days. In fact, you could divide the dollars
directed to poor people by the stimulus package by 120, the number of
days by which Senate Bill 2557 will extend the Protect America Act, and
determine just how much it cost the Republicans to buy each day of
delay. But it will be worth every penny. Warrantless surveillance will
remain the law of the land well into the summer, by which time the
nation will be wrapped up in presidential campaign fever, and the last
Bush holdouts will be deploying their parachutes. The Bush gang is
betting that Congress will be less willing to confront the issue four
months from now. Meanwhile, they will enjoy the power to violate our
privacy in ways we don’t even understand.
The Democrats know
what they’re doing, but as usual, they’ve got an outdated strategy. It
was the economy, stupid, but it’s gone way beyond that. It’s about
having government we can trust, from the Congress to the President to
the Supreme Court. Right now, we have none of it. We have a president
who lies, a Congress that runs in fear from the word “terror,” and a
Supreme Court that worships government and reduces the individual to a
pawn. Congress is afraid to reveal the depth of the traitorous conduct
that they have let the Bush regime perpetrate. That’s why they enacted
the Protect America Act in the first place – to give Bush the cover he
needs to get out of office without being impeached, and to retire in
safety, without being indicted.
The media
disinformation campaign is going great. The gutting of the 4th Amendment
has gone all but unnoticed. Good liberals like me think that the point
is whether the telcos will get amnesty, overlooking the fact that the
Protect America Act itself is the elephant in the room. I started out
from that viewpoint when I began researching this report, and ended up
deciding that the whole “amnesty for telcos” issue is a sidetrack. Sure,
the telco lawsuits are the most likely avenue for an investigation that
would lead to discovering who, in the Bush gang, put all this stuff in
motion. But only idiots with media credentials really ask themselves,
“who authorized this?” That’s like asking if Reagan authorized North to
supply the Contras with weapons in defiance of a law making it strictly
illegal to provide that assistance. Of course Reagan authorized it –
that’s why North did it. And of course Bush authorized domestic spying –
that’s why he’s willing to stretch his immunity deal out for fifteen
days.
Realizing that the
worms that would come out of this domestic spying garbage can, if it
were opened, would be large enough to eat all of Washington DC, the two
houses of Congress are as ready as two mutts in an alley to do the deed.
Eventually, they’ll grant the telcos immunity from lawsuits, because
that’s all the Republicans will need to keep the lid on the scandal. But
are they so messed up that they might permanently adopt the Protect
America Act? It’s one thing to let the Bush gang go free when they
deserve to swing on the end of a rope. It’s quite another to burn the
4th Amendment right out of the Constitution for the rest of the life of
our nation.
Here’s what I
think – anytime somebody is bargaining in the area of fifteen days,
they’re weak. And when Bush cuts his demands from vetoing a 30-day deal
to signing a 15-day deal, there has got to be some invisible sweetener –
an unspoken quid pro quo, something more than the mere four month
extension bill that Reid is proposing. Something that, in essence, is
granting Bush and his affiliated criminals amnesty for running America
into the ground, ruining our economy, our national pride, our ability to
stand together as Americans proud to be Americans. It all turns round
this Protect America Act, I’m sure. Call Harry Reid now at 202-224-3502,
and tell him you heard about the secret deals in Vegas. Tell him to
ditch his amnesty plans for Bush, let the Protect America Act expire,
and save our Constitution.
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