The truth is that the Senate and House have both become little
more than rubber stamps for Administration power grabs ever since 9-11.
Indeed, since that date, the members of Congress have been willing
sell-outs of their own institution, which today bears no resemblance to
what the Founders described in Article I of the Constitution — a
document which the members have effectively destroyed.
or the
past six-and-a-half years we have watched as a group of political
midgets have destroyed what hundreds of thousands of our ancestors put
their lives on the line to create and defend — a government system that
was founded on the concept of individual rights and liberties, and that
was structured to limit the power of the executive.
Much has
been made of a conversation at the White House a few years ago, in
which Bush is reported to have told a few Republican members of the
House that the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper." In
fact, that is what the members of Congress have also decided by their
actions — and by their continued inaction.
Prior to 2006, it
was primarily the Republicans in Congress who were trashing the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the concept of separation of
powers, though with significant Democratic backing. Now, it is the
Democrats who are the wrecking crew.
Make no mistake: the
Democrats did not have to pass this latest piece of legislation,
loosing the NSA spies on us all. They had the power to kill that bill
in its tracks. Instead, they succumbed to the President's empty threat
to label them all "soft on terror" if they didn't give him what he
wanted: a blank check. They caved, just as they did when they had the
power to end the war in Iraq last April by cutting off funding for it,
and instead, voted to fund it in full.
The Democrats in this
Congress are a bunch of spineless cowards and willing enablers, and
they now bear the chief responsibility for establishing the elements of
an American police state.
For that is clearly where this nation is headed.
There
was no need to give the president new warrantless surveillance powers.
Would be terrorists are already fully aware of the government's spying
capabilities and certainly are being cautious in their use of phones
and email to communicate. Moreover, the secret FISA court has
demonstrated that it is most accommodating of spying requests, having
only rejected one such request from the President and National Security
Agency in the past two years. It is obvious then that what the
president is seeking is expanded power to spy on Americans. And
incredibly, despite his 27-percent support rating in the polls, and
despite widespread public fears of this kind of government snooping, he
is getting it.
Sen. Feingold has been one of the staunchest
defenders of the Constitution, voting against the USA Patriot Act and
against the invasion of Iraq, but he is wrong to imply that before
Friday's betrayal of that document, the Senate was acting as an
independent body. Both the Senate and the House ceased playing their
constitutional role and became rubber stamps a long time ago.
Instead
of empty rhetoric, Sen. Feingold needs to take action and mount a
filibuster against this shameful and dangerous bill, so that when it
comes back for a final vote after being reconciled with whatever comes
out of the House, it is killed.
What was Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) thinking when he told Senate colleagues it was a "sad day" when that body started taking its marching orders from an outsider (the president and the director of national security), in passing a new version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that gives the president a free hand to spy on communications of Americans without a judicial review? 
