With the sheer volume of reports spewing from mainstream news agencies, blogs (Schneier, The Ape Man) and bearded weirdos on street corners regarding the recent revelation that our President admits with pride and conviction that he authorized (some 30 times) the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens without warrant, you may well ask, “Et tu, MrPikes?”
Yep, and here’s why: There simply isn’t enough outrage. The last one was impeached by the United States Congress for lying about a blowjob. This one is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanistanis, mismanaging the federal response to a natural disaster, systematically laying the foundation for a police state (USA PATRIOT Act, Real ID, secret prisons, Gitmo, torture), spending the country into massive debt, further eroding the wall between Church and State, committing egregious acts of the worst kinds of cronyism (here, here, and here), and now openly admits to committing repeated criminal violations of Section 1809 of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Section 1809 reads as follows:
(a) Prohibited activities
A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally—
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or
(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute.
(b) Defense
It is 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.
(c) Penalties
An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.
(d) Federal jurisdiction
There is Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section if the person committing the offense was an officer or employee of the United States at the time the offense was committed.
FISA was specifically put in place in the wake of abuses committed by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the FBI (COINTELPRO). The powers of the oversight body (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) are broadly defined and shadowy as hell, but the entity at least ensures some degree of independent oversight.
The argument put forth by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice for President Bush circumventing the law is that the process was too cumbersome to keep up with today’s go-go terrorists. FISA specifically permits retroactive warrants to be obtained 72 hours after the fact, if an emergency exists. What FISA does not permit are expansive fishing expeditions without probable cause. Incidentally, FISC Judge James Robertson has resigned over this. When the judge of a secretive organization with broad powers resigns because the president has gone too far, it’s time to start paying attention.
President Bush broke the law. Further, he states that he has no intention of stopping. It’s okay though, because he’s the President.
He’s the most serious kind of asshole and he needs to go. Nothing I write here can possibly express how much damage this man has done to this once-great nation’s world stature, or how far his actions have gone to making the United States an even bigger target for terrorist attacks than before.
Enough already. Fire this man. We sort-of elected him *twice*, and we can go a long way to showing the rest of the world that we’ve come to our senses if we take positive action to remove this menace rather than allowing his term simply to peter out. Okay, so we get President Cheney (or what’s left of him) for the next three years. All I can say is that he will be placed so firmly in the category of ‘damaged goods’ as to weaken the Executive branch’s influence to the point of non-existence.
For those who are fearful that such an action will make us more vulnerable because we will be perceived as weak, don’t forget, approximately half of those who participated in the 2000 and 2004 elections voted for this disaster. Demonstrating to the entire world that we will no longer be complicit to this would-be dictator’s destruction of our proud national identity is hardly a weaker position than passively continuing to endorse him.
I received the excerpted article below from my good friend and mandolin player (well he’s not MY mandolin player) Horatio. It describes the investigation into American social action groups by the FBI, as a result of a recent broadening of the definition of ‘domestic terrorism.’ I copied a bit of it for you below, along with my e-mail reply to Doug the mando-master. As you can see, I have left the serious debate to the others.
“FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked”
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity.
The documents, disclosed as part of a lawsuit that challenges FBI treatment of groups that planned demonstrations at last year’s political conventions, show the bureau has opened a preliminary terrorism investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the well-known animal rights group based in Norfolk.
The papers offer no proof of PETA’s involvement in illegal activity. But more than 100 pages of heavily censored FBI files show the agency used secret informants and tracked the group’s events for years, including an animal rights conference in Washington in July 2000, a community meeting at an Indiana college in spring 2003 and a planned August 2004 protest of a celebrity fur endorser.
Thanks Horatio,
Keep that stuff coming. Thanks for getting the word out. You know I always wondered about those PETA people. What’s up with their ‘animal hugging’ agenda anyway? The Bible clearly delineates man’s dominion over animals and (what was it in Genesis?) all the creepy crawling things?
Clearly these PETA hacks must be up to something insidious. Think if they got control of the zoo population, which they would if they could. Maybe there’s more to their anti-zoo agenda than ‘animal welfare.’ Think of it: combine the force of the the Arabs’ dirty bombs with the ferocity of an escaped Bengal tiger or a Diane Fossey type silver-back gorilla; and, well it’s just common sense isn’t it? They should have animal control officials at the ready at every location ‘W’ sets foot. That’s just ‘National Security 0101.’
And if it means raiding PETA offices and making examples of their kingpins, ‘so be it’ I say. We can’t afford insurrection disguised as ‘rightful protest.’ This has gone far enough.
And you know, come to think of it, I have never seen a suicide bomber wearing fur of any kind. More than coincidence I think. We need to round up these bastards. Thank God Hunter Thompson took himself out; but no such luck with this lot. They’re on the side of the beasts, and that’s frightening enough for retaliation.
God Bless America,
Bones
CC: FBI ‘Potential Rogue’ files