American Big Man Part V

This situation has just gotten a whole lot worse. The New York Times has reported that the House committee has voted to put the surveillance inquiry on hold.

But an aide to Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who leads the committee, said the inquiry would be much more limited in scope, focusing on whether federal surveillance laws needed to be changed and not on the eavesdropping program itself.

The agreement to conduct an inquiry came as the Senate Intelligence Committee put off a vote on conducting its own investigation after the White House, reversing course, agreed to open discussions about changing federal surveillance law. Senate Democrats accused Republicans of bowing to White House pressure...

Ms. Wilson said the review would include closed-door briefings by intelligence officials about the operational details of the program, a review of its legality and discussion about whether changes are needed in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which bans eavesdropping in intelligence investigations without a court order.

While the administration agreed under pressure last week to provide limited operational details to the House and Senate intelligence committees, Ms. Wilson said she wanted more information and remained uncertain whether the N.S.A. had the needed safeguards in place to protect against civil rights abuses against Americans.

But Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra, said: "This is not an inquiry into the program. It's a comprehensive review of the FISA statute. " He said Mr. Hoekstra "wants to set up a process to move forward and look at the entire statute and ways to modernize it."



So let's get this straight:
1) First the Administration declared that it agrees that FISA is lawful. (documented in previous American Big Man posts)
2) Administration then goes around the court. (illegal, unconstitutional, and an impeachable offense)
3) Republicans sit with the Bush administration to discuss changing the law that the administration broke.

What kind of bull is this? Can you imaging a criminal going to court and asking that he and the judge go into chambers and change the law that the criminal was accused of breaking so that he can't be found guilty? What is this!! Does the administration have so much stuff on Republicans that they are too shook to even uphold the very constitution and laws they pledged to uphold?

In the 90's we had to endure Republicans chasing after Bill Clinton for getting head on the job. No, for lying about getting head on the job. The man was nearly impeached for what was ultimately a personal indiscretion and covering it up with a single lie.

On the other hand. This president has admitted, in public to breaking a federal statute aimed at upholding the constitutional rights of every citizen, regardless of political party of stripe and not only have no impeachment hearings even happened. The inquiry has been stopped so that the person who admitted to breaking the law can fix the law so that he cannot be found to have broken the law.

So lets get it straight. President lies about a personal issue that affects the constitutional rights of absolutely no one and he's nearly impeached.
President admits to breaking federal law and violating his oath of office and gets a chance to rewrite the law.

Additionally, this isn't about operational details. All that is a smoke screen. The question is very, very simple:
1) Is there a legal requirement for a warrant (from whatever court) to tap US persons?
2) If there is a legal requirement, then did the president not meet this requirement?

That's it. No need to ask how information is gotten, no need to discuss who get's it or who's been surveilled. Simple questions. What is with the beating aroun the bush? What's with the damn closed door meetings and people not being put under oath? If you can't be put under oath then you are a liar. Why are liars running the justice department? Why aren't the so called opposition (That would be Democrats) even playing this game? Why didn't they shut down the proceedings when Gonzalez refused to be oathed? To quote DMX:

Where my dogs at?
Where my "Liberty or Death" dogs at?
Where my "Touch my Rights, I blow you a new hole" dogs at?
Where my "We'll shut this b$$$h down" dogs at?