You know that beautiful system of government we have? The one designed to uphold the laws defending the rights of the people? Maybe "the system of government we had" is more fitting. On June twenty-fifth (25th), there was a scheduled cloture vote in the Senate. For those unaware, a cloture vote is a vote designed to bring a discussion to a speedy conclusion. When the security of a nation's people is at stake, one might think that time for debate would be at the top of the priority list. The issue at hand? A bill offering complete amnesty to the telecommunications industry for all the wiretapping they enacted at the behest of the Bush administration. The disturbing part, of course, is that they need amnesty at all. Warrantless wiretapping.. all in the name of security, of course. Who needs to follow laws, when they can be retroactively modified? Surely the privacy of our nations inhabitants is unnecessary. If we have nothing to hide, then why be worried? Even the name of the bill bears a chilling title: "Protection of Persons Assisting the Government." This sounds vaguely familiar. Not to fear, 1984 has already passed.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/19/telecom/index.html
The basic idea behind the bill is this: all lawsuits against the telecommunications industry, of which there are over 40 already, will be immediately thrown out once the Attorney General says "they did it for the nation's security". The amnesty is total and unquestionable. Warrantless? Irrelevant. Invasive? Who cares. Illegal? Today, sure. Tomorrow.. well, laws were made to be broken, right? Speaker Pelosi refers to the bill as "balanced". "Balanced" in the sense that both Republicans and Democrats are equally at fault for allowing the government to access our private communications at will.
Of course, it's appalling to think that our government isn't trying to protect us from the terrorists. All it needs is the unconditional power to read all of our emails and telephone calls, with aid from a now-legalized yet discomfortingly Orwellian telecom industry. This will make the difference, I'm telling you. All those terrorists that have been hiding under our noses, using their U.S.-based e-mail addresses/servers? All those discreet, deadly phone calls by extremists using AT&T, Sprint, and other American-based corporations? A thing of the past. Sleep soundly, my dears, Big Brother is here to scare away those big bad terrorists.
Now I'm no history expert, but wasn't the government here put in place to protect the rights of the people? I thought the government was beholden to the citizens, not the other way around. After all, the Constitution was deeply affected by ideals from the Enlightenment. Not that the Constitution carries much weight around here any more. It was only written hundreds of years ago; obviously it is no longer applicable today.
Applause to Senators Russ Feingold and Christopher Dodd for attempting to filibuster the bill.
"Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity," Feingold said.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061901545_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008061903766)
