Constitutional Reform Now!*
Forward-thinking reform-minded Dems already have striven mightily to reconfigure the president’s executive powers as commander-in-chief, his ability to hire and fire U.S. attorneys, his ability to appoint ambassadors and judges. This hasn’t always worked out for Congress. Now Congress, having voted to allow our intelligence agencies to spy on our enemies, vows give authority back that it voted to take away from to judges it won’t let Bush appoint, and remove the attorney general as gatepost of civil liberties: Â
WASHINGTON (CNN) – President Bush signed a controversial bill Sunday that temporarily revises federal electronic surveillance laws.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois says the wiretapping bill could potentially infringe on civil liberties.
The new law gives the attorney general or the director of national intelligence the authority to approve surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas.
The bill went through Congress over the weekend after heavy pressure from the Bush administration, which demanded that lawmakers remain in session until it passed.
What this means is that, fortunately for the security of our nation, vacay is more important to Dem Cong than its principles, such as they are.
“Over the past three decades, this law has not kept pace with revolutionary changes in technology,” Bush said. “As a result, our intelligence professionals have told us that they are missing significant intelligence information that they need to protect the country.”
Bush sought changes to FISA after a classified ruling by a court set up under the law to hear wiretap requests.
That ruling concluded that FISA required a warrant for eavesdropping on communications between people overseas because so many phone calls and e-mails are sent through U.S. switching centers, U.S. officials said.
The administration initially proposed to give the authority only to the attorney general, but agreed to add the director of national intelligence after Democrats objected to putting more power into the hands of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
…
But Democrats and the American Civil Liberties Union objected to provisions in the GOP-backed bill that grant the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the authority to approve all wiretaps — even if one party is in the United States — with minimal court oversight.
Bush said Congress will need to pass a more comprehensive reform bill when it reconvenes in September after its August recess. Congress will be called to address what Bush called “meaningful liability protection” for those who took part in the eavesdropping program.
The ACLU says the administration’s proposals would effectively “gut” FISA. And Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the third most powerful Democrat in the House, said lawmakers “are not going to leave Alberto Gonzales as the gatekeeper on American civil liberties.”
“That’s the fundamental problem, and we’re going to fix it when we come back,” Emanuel told reporters Sunday.
“We had to do it. We did what we needed to do. The Democrats are united in fixing this flawed law.”
Once they get back from vacay.**Â
But this isn’t about vacay, except in that vacay is a fundamental civil right that must be defended against all autocratic assaults, in this case through another application of the clever Dem surrender-and-squawk strategy.Â
This is about constitutional reform. The Democratic leadership in Congress has determined, in its wisdom, that the clunky 18th century three-legged milking stool of government, the quaint heirloom our forefathers created and handed down to us, is in this day and age and particular set of circumstances as obsolete and impractical to their purposes as, I dunno, this thing.Â
The Dems, armed with their mandate, are answering the demand of the American people for something sleeker, more Euro-styled. A parliament. Â
* Make that, constitutional reform after vacay!  Â
** Iraqi pols go on vacay with U.S. troops fighting and dying for them. Dems cave on their most dearly held pro al-Qaeda civil liberties principles so they can go on vacay. This underscores the fundamental importance of vacay to the working of government in a free society. This is why it was one of the key points of tyranny raised in the Declaration of Independence (”He has deprived us of our vacay, interfering with our reservations”) and is enshrined in the United States Constitution,  (Article 1, Section 4, Clause 3: Congress shall have at a minimum, twice as much vacay as the average citizenry, and observe no less than one week for each federal holiday observed by the electorate. Any votes that may taken under duress of the infringement of vacay will be considered to have been taken with fingers crossed.)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:20 am on Monday, August 6, 2007
8 Responses to “Constitutional Reform Now!*”
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August 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Web Reconnaissance for 08/06/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
The ultimate “vacay” statement of the US Congress, from Dick Morris
Congress Will Be Out of Session for More than 16 Weeks
“In our new book, Outrage, we document the awful truth about the “Do-Nothing Congress.” The fact is that they are paid at least $165,500 a year, and they hardly show up at all. In 2006, for example, Congress was only in session for 103 days, slightly more than two days a week on average. Nice work, if you can find it.
And so on…
And take a look at the free trip, conference scam…aka, “going nice places to yak, bring the family…”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286235,00.html
August 6th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Others may complain about the short time that Congress actually works, but I do not. The less time they spend screwing the citizens of this country, the better.
The Dhims are doing more than trying to gut executive powers. The precursor necessary to changing our way of government is to shut up the proles, which the left is working very hard to do by eviscerating the First Amendment, whether it be through speech codes on our campuses, through so-called hate-crimes legislation, through attempts to reinstate the “fairness doctrine”, through campaign-finance “reform,” etc. The Reps. are hardly better. If we are to save this country, we must fight this with everything we can.
August 6th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Can we impeach Congress?
August 6th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Pay them more, maybe they’ll “work” less. Sounds like a good deal to me.
August 6th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Recollect the answers of the newly appointed Chairman of the House Intelligence committee to an interviewer’s questions
Q: Al Qaeda is what, Sunni or Shia ?
Reyes: Al Qaeda ? They have both. You’re talking predominantly ?
Q: Sure
Reyes: Predominantly-probably Shiite.
When asked about the nature of the Iranian supported Lebanese based Hezbollah…
Q: And Hezbollah ? What are they ?
Reyes: Hezbollah. Uh…Hezbollah. ..Why do you ask me these specific questions at five o’clock ? Can I answer in Spanish ? Do you speak Spanish ?
August 7th, 2007 at 2:34 am
Oh dear lord, tanstaafl, I could have slept better without reading that right before bedtime.
Are there no serious people in our ‘leadership?”
August 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Reportedly, there are different levels to which various members of the House & Senate “intelligence” committees get briefed about what.
As House committee chair, you would imagine Silvester Reyes (D-Tx) would be privy to the most sensitive briefings.
sleep well, my liege, sleep well…