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David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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August 8, 2007 7:52 AM
How to Defund Warrantless Wiretapping
Over at OpenLeft, I have posted my bi-weekly Strategery article. This week, it's about an alternative strategy to stop the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping. Such a strategy is necessary because congressional Democrats last week capitulated to the White House and passed legislation allowing this kind of behavior to continue.
Let's be clear - we all want law enforcement authorities to be able to hunt down terrorists. And we know for a fact that the special FISA courts already have extraordinary tools to process warrant requests (there is even a process to approve them retroactively so as to prevent federal agents from losing precious time in the hunt for terrorists). We know, in other words, that Congress following a strategy like the one I describe would merely force the Bush administration to follow a law that does nothing to hurt our national security, and everything to protect our freedoms. Put another way, this isn't a debate about national security because there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that obtaining warrants hurts national security. This is a debate about privacy and the rule of law.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
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The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
Overseas warrentless wire tapping has been part and parcel of U.S. intelligence gathering for decades. For example if you hold a high level security clearance and you call outside the U.S. your call is automatically monitored. It was one of the ways we caught a lot of traitors.
And the same should apply for any fundamentalist Muslim calling the ME or Europe from the U.S.
The problem with the Bush wiretap bill, if people actually bother to examine the gory details, is that its so poorly written that it does allow domestic warrentless tapping. Which is bad.
The good news is the bill can fixed. The problem is the Democrats evidently too dumb and scared to do it.
That said, the reason why the Democrats caved is that they don't have a clue on how to deal with Islamic terrorism and national security at all and they know the GOP can beat them like a dog on this issue.
waltc,
The Democrats aren't dumb. They're just a bunch of crooks and liars, at least the DLC/BlueDog hacks anyway. These same Democrats who caved in to Bush on doling out spending increases on the Iraq war are just as likely to do the same on warrentless wiretapping as soon as the GOP and their puppet media hacks frame the funding as "necessary to fight the war on terrorism".
Moreoever, as maxpayne earlier pointed out, electing what appeared to be pro-populist Democrats turned out to be useless as 4 of the 16 Senate Democrats were not only newly elected but supposedly represented the populist-leaning progressives. I feel sorry for the people who had hoped that the Democrats wouldn't stoop this low and all I can say to them and the pissed off Republicans who are just as sick and tired of empty promises on social reform is DUMP THESE TWO PARTIES AND VOTE INDEPENDENT.
This whole Democrats having no back bone or strong resolve for National Defense is new as it was always Democrats who fought first including WWII..!
Democrats have more to fight for we are the ones who value our freedom over profit and security, the Kennedy's had they been in office on 9/11 would have very likely used nuclear weapons on Afghanistan and never would have given bin-Laden a truce at Tora Bora so he could escape JFK would have blow the top off the mountain fortress and also showed the world and sent a message that you do not come to the United States and murder slaughter 3,000 of us and then get away with it as bin-Laden and Zawahiri did..!
Senator Bob Graham had the right take after 9/11 and I whole heatedly supported him even now Obama was right to try and show some toughness just that you don't put Troops into Waziristan you just bomb the shit outta them and no photos..
One tactic the Democrats have not taken is to really ask why Bush let bin-Laden escape why he didn't meet with Richard Clarke why he let 9/11 happen why he ignored The CIA and Special Forces begging for only 6-800 troops to get bin-Laden then send 162,000 to the desert junk yard shit hole of Iraq full of liars thieves murders and goat Molesters..?
I'm a Democrat and I'd show you some real strength in National Security and no one would ever doubt it, it comes from within and that's what people pick up on then feel secure..
Besides my family has been killing these bastards for over 800 years..
Simple as that..
Peace..
TJ,
Bob Graham looked interesting but he was unfortunately relegated to last status and forced out of the primary through defunding him just the way Gravel and Kucinich are being treated these days. Unfortunately, if you want Democrats to be like the Kennedys of the 60s, you'd be better off voting Independent such as Nader, Green, Socialist, etc ...
Forgot to add Bushco doesn't need to worry about obeying FISA in domestic cases at all since he has access to civilian outfits like ChoicePoint and ATT and others who collect massive amounts of electronic information on Americans to sell to the highest bidder.
Bushco even used these firms to bypass NSA restrictions on spying on Americans in the past.
Firms like these make the NSA and its apparatus Echelon irrelevant.
Its odd that those screaming about the Dems voting for Bushco warrantless wiretapping are mute when it comes to big business spying on Americans. Guess its ok when big business is doing it and bad when Bush is doing it.
TJ:
Todays Democrats are not like JFK or FDR anymore when you see what constitutes Dem leadership today. They are a bunch of castrati, all they are interested in is bribe taking and putting earmarks in legislation for their buddies.
The wire tap vote was at least the third vote of Webb's that I'm unhappy with. Just goes to show that "populism" is not the cure-all.
ACD,
I kinda wondered if Webb was really populist to begin with given that he was an insider back in the 1980s. I visited VA and the only populism that seems to receive any favors is social conservatism though I hear it's not as dominant. No matter, the moneyed elites win from what I hear. How bad is Kaine and Warner, both DLC hacks, compared to Webb?
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