By Kenneth J. Theisen, 8/8/07
Anyone who had illusions that a Democratic-controlled
Congress would somehow reign in the Bush regime’s agenda should take a close
look at what happened when the Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) recently. The Bush regime has been pushing for
reactionary changes in this massive spy law and Congress gave the
administration what it wanted. The new
spy law provides a legal framework for the controversial National Security
Agency’s (NSA) warrantless surveillance program. It even appears to expand that spy program.
The legislation was passed in the Senate by a vote of 60 to
28. 15 Democrats joined all of the
Republicans who voted for the bill. In the
House, 41 Democrats joined the 186 Republicans voting for the bill’s passage,
while two Republicans joined the 181 Democrats opposing it. Congress passed this law despite the fact that
Congressional committees are actually still investigating past surveillance
abuses of the Bush administration and the regime is stonewalling those
investigations using the magic words “national security” and “executive
privilege.” Congress does not even know
the extent of past abuses and yet it enacts a law that legalizes even more
abuses.
The new law, known as the “Protect America Act of 2007,” allows
intelligence agencies to intercept, without a warrant, the calls and emails of
Americans who are communicating with people abroad, and puts authority for
doing so in the hands of those well-known civil libertarians, Attorney General
Gonzales and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. In other words we must rely on the man who
has been behind the legal justifications for most of the Bush regime’s crimes
to protect us from abuse of this new law.
Of course we also have the chief spymaster of the regime to protect
us. Why do I feel like Himmler and
Goering were just put in charge of my liberty?
There are no longer any judicial or any other protections in
the law to keep the Bush regime from massive spying. In effect, Congress gave the Bush administration
a blank check to conduct massive spying which in the past would have been
illegal. According to Caroline
Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, “It seems that
political cover is more important to our senators than the rights and privacy
of those they represent. The
administration is on the verge of reviving a warrantless wiretapping program
even broader than the illegal one it conducted before.”
This newest tool of the Bush regime expands the NSA’s power
to eavesdrop on phone calls, e-mail messages and other internet traffic with
virtually no judicial oversight. The law
also requires that telecommunications companies comply with the Bush regime’s
demands and provide access to their networks.
It further grants immunity from all lawsuits to these companies for
their participation in the spying. Your
phone company, internet provider, etc. are now part of the Bush regime scheme
to spy on you.
The law permits the warrantless monitoring of communications
of any person in the U.S.
as long as that person is not the primary target. The targeted person can be any person
“reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States,” even if the target is a U.S. citizen or is communicating with someone
within U.S.
borders. The Bush regime claims it will
only use this law to target “suspected terrorists,” but any person “reasonably
believed to be located outside the Unite States” is the actual wording in the
law. This is unbelievably broad language
allowing anyone outside of the U.S.
to become a target.
The law also goes much further. Unlike the past, this law is
not just limited to calls between the U.S. and a foreign country
either. Calls and e-mails which occur
between people located outside the country are now covered as long as they go
through equipment in the U.S. Because many international calls and e-mails
are “routed through” U.S. located telecommunication’s facilities, the NSA and
other spy agencies can now plug into a switch inside the United States and
monitor someone outside the country without seeking a warrant as well.
This new law may also allow “data mining.” Will it allow spy agencies looking for
“suspicious calling patterns” to search phone and e-mail records furnished by
telecommunications companies? The
language of the law requiring these companies to cooperate with the government
suggests that this may be allowed. And
given the past record of the Bush regime it is likely that it will exploit any
ambiguity in the law.
In theory this law is temporary, limited to 180 days. But given the past record of temporary laws do
not expect it to sunset then or ever. A
spokeswoman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained that
the Bush regime agreed to the temporary nature of the bill because, “Our
main objective at this point was to ensure that a bill passed that would give
us the tools we needed to continue to fight the war on terror. The politics of it were such that that was
the concession we were willing to make in order to get this bill passed sooner
than later.” In other words, we
will get the law extended later when the political furor goes down. This happened with portions of the PATRIOT Act
which originally were “temporary” but later became permanent.
President Bush made this clear in a statement after signing
the bill, “Our work is not done.”
He demanded “comprehensive reform,” (meaning even more onerous
provisions giving him even more power) including the “important issue of
providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have
assisted our nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001.” He also wants the new comprehensive reform to
become permanent.
Interestingly, even if the law is not extended by the
compliant Congress, the law permits any surveillance orders that are in place
when it sunsets to last up to a full year, or in other words to the end of the
Bush regime in January 2009. How
convenient?
Democratic leaders had the power to kill this bill but chose
not too. Instead they allowed the Bush
regime to pass it before the summer Congressional recess. Pelosi voted against the bill but she did not
really wield the powers at her command.
As House Speaker she controls the schedule of votes on legislation. She could have delayed the vote indefinitely
thus killing the bill, but she did not exercise this considerable power even
though she said the legislation “does violence to the Constitution of the United States.” This way she can have it both ways. The bill is allowed to become law, but she can
pretend she was against it.
Defenders of the Democratic leadership said that they did
not want to appearing weak in the so-called “war on terror” by
interfering with intelligence gathering, but this is not the real reason they
allowed this bill to pass. In reality,
the Democrats like the Republicans are an imperialist party. They may make speeches and remarks like that
of Pelosi above, but they are primarily interested in serving the interests of U.S.
imperialism and not those of the American people. They do not let the Bush agenda go forward
because they lack backbones, but because they actually agree with the agenda in
many cases.
We have seen the Democrats repeatedly make speeches, issue press
statements, and otherwise put up a phony opposition to the Bush agenda, but
when it comes to putting up or shutting up they go along with the agenda. For instance, the Democrats, especially those
in the House, could stop the war if they really wished by cutting off
funding. The House must initiate
appropriation or spending bills. The
president can not spend money he does not have so he is dependent on the House
for the money. Yet the House has
continually voted to fund the war in Iraq. In the last vote they gave Bush more than he
requested. If the House does not vote a
funding bill there is nothing Bush can do. He can not veto it as there is nothing to
veto. He can not move around enough funds to keep the
war going without the House appropriating money through its so-called “power of
the purse.” Those like Pelosi know this,
but then they claim they can not actually “stop the war.”
They can, but will not. It has nothing to do with backbones. They have the political backbone to defy most
of their constituency who favor ending the war. But they do not defy the Bush regime because
they agree with the regime’s agenda to protect U.S. imperialism’s domination of
the world. They may disagree on tactics
on how to do this, but not on the basic need of the U.S.
to control the Middle East in order to
dominate the entire world.
The Democrats also capitulated when they passed the Military
Commissions Act (MCA) last year. For
years after 9/11 the regime abused the due process rights of detainees,
virtually ignoring the Constitution. Interrogation and detention methods violated
international law and most Americans were appalled to discover that torture was
taking place in their name. Democratic
leaders often stated their “shock” at these abuses. Finally in August 2006 even the conservative
Supreme Court in the Hamdan case stated that the regime had gone too far. Instead of then going after the regime for its
abuses, the Congress hurriedly passed the MCA which legalized most of those
abuses and further eroded due process rights. The MCA was passed with significant Democratic
support.
Impeachment is yet another example of defiance of their
constituency by the Democratic leaders. Pelosi
and others have consistently said impeachment is “off the table” despite a growing
support for impeachment.
In fact in January 2006 a Zogby poll was conducted about
Bush and his illegal surveillance of Americans. The poll, conducted by Zogby International,
interviewed 1,216 U.S.
adults from January 9-12, 2006. It
indicated by a margin of 52% to 43%, that those polled wanted Congress to
consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a
judge’s approval. 52% agreed with the
statement:
“If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without
the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider
holding him accountable through impeachment.”
Broken down by political affiliation these were the results
of that poll: 66% of Democrats favored impeachment, as did 59% of Independents,
and even 23% of Republicans. By ideology, impeachment was supported by
Progressives (90%), Libertarians (71%), Liberals (65%), and Moderates (58%),
but not by Conservatives (33%) or Very Conservatives (28%).
Well, Bush admitted at the time that he did order such
wiretapping. Of course his loyal legal
dog, Alberto Gonzales tried to legally justify the NSA surveillance. And despite the admission, the Democrats did
not bring a bill of impeachment. Bush’s
support has not risen since January 2006 and yet the Democratic leaders still
will not take steps to impeach. What
they did do was allow this new spy law to be enacted.
If the Democrats allegedly fear a voter reaction if they do
not approve bills like the Protect America Act, why do they consistently ignore
the electorate on the war, impeachment, and even on surveillance? I believe there willingness to ignore or defy
the voters is proof of their agreement with the basic Bush regime agenda and
can not be attributed to fear of voter reaction. What message do they think the electorate
delivered last November? The message was
not to continue the Bush regime’s agenda but that seems to be the message on
which they are acting. It is clear that
the Democrats will not stop the war, stop massive spying or any other of the Bush
regime crimes on their own initiative.