Congressional version of FISA Bill not outrageous enough for Bush
Bush refused to sign because it did not grant immunity to private companies which assisted government in violating our rights.
Bush left for Africa. Maybe he should stay.
Africa likes dictators more than the United States.
Keith Olbermann Special Comment *MR BUSH YOU ARE A FASCIST!*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEcBjpsP1bU
Text of this video:
A Veto of the FISA Bill Endangers Americans
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
Thursday 14 February 2008
A part of what I will say, was said here on Jan. 31.
Unfortunately it is both sadder and truer now than it was then.
"Who's to blame?" Mr. Bush also said this afternoon, "Look, these
folks in Congress passed a good bill late last summer.... The problem
is, they let the bill expire. My attitude is: If the bill was good
enough then, why not pass the bill again?"
Like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Or Executive Order 90-66. Or
The Alien and Sedition Acts. Or slavery.
Mr. Bush, you say that our ability to track terrorist threats
will be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Yet you
have weakened that ability!
You have subjected us, your citizens, to that greater danger!
This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough for even you to understand.
For the moment, at least, thanks to some true patriots in the
House, and your own stubbornness, you have tabled telecom immunity,
and the FISA act.
You. By your own terms and your definitions, you have just sided
with the terrorists. You've got to have this law, or we're all going
to die. But, practically speaking, you vetoed this law.
It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an ex post facto
law that could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from
responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant
collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans
under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid
enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.
But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union
address, you wouldn't even confirm that they actually did anything
for which they deserved to be cleared.
"The Congress must pass liability protection for companies
believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America."
Believed? Don't you know? Don't you even have the guts Dick
Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you? Does this
endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here? If
you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business,
come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that
describes that toxic blend.
You're a fascist - get them to print you a T-shirt with fascist
on it! What else is this but fascism? Did you see Mark Klein on this
newscast last November?
Mark Klein was the AT&T whistleblower who explained in the
placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood IT desk how he
personally attached all AT&T circuits, everything, carrying every one
of your phone calls, every one of your e-mails, every bit of your Web
browsing into a secure room, room No. 641-A at the Folsom Street
facility in San Francisco, where it was all copied so the government
could look at it.
Not some of it, not just the international part of it, certainly
not just the stuff some spy, a spy both patriotic and telepathic,
might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist.
Everything! Every time you looked at a naked picture. Every time
you bid on eBay. Every time you phoned in a donation to a
Democrat. "My thought was," Mr. Klein told us last November, "George
Orwell's `1984.' And here I am, forced to connect the Big Brother
machine."
And if there's one thing we know about Big Brother, Mr. Bush, it
is that he is - you are - a liar.
"This Saturday at midnight," you said Thursday, "legislation
authorizing intelligence professionals to quickly and effectively
monitor terrorist communications will expire. If Congress does not
act by that time, our ability to find out who the terrorists are
talking to, what they are saying and what they are planning will be
compromised." You said that "the lives of countless Americans depend"
on your getting your way.
This is crap. And you sling it with an audacity and a speed
unrivaled by even the greatest political felons of our history.
Richard Clarke - you might remember him, sir: He was one of the
counterterror pros you inherited from President Clinton, before you
ran the professionals out of government in favor of your unreality-
based reality - Richard Clarke wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
"Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists
overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire.
"If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate
any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently
occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed
because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a
full year."
You are a liar, Mr. Bush. And after showing some skill at it, you
have ceased to even be a very good liar.
And your minions like John Boehner, your Republican congressional
crash dummies who just happen to decide to walk out of Congress when
a podium-full of microphones await them, they should just keep
walking, out of Congress and, if possible, out of the country.
For they and you, sir, have no place in a government of the
people, by the people, for the people.
The lot of you are the symbolic descendants of the despotic
middle managers of some banana republic to whom "freedom" is an
ironic brand name, a word you reach for when you want to get away
with its opposite.
Thus, Mr. Bush, your panoramic invasion of privacy is dressed up
as "protecting America."
Thus, Mr. Bush, your indiscriminate domestic spying becomes the
focused monitoring only of "terrorist communications."
Thus, Mr. Bush, what you and the telecom giants have done isn't
unlawful; it's just the kind of perfectly legal, passionately
patriotic thing for which you happen to need immunity!
Richard Clarke is on the money, as usual.
That the president was willing to veto this eavesdropping means
there is no threat to the legitimate counterterror efforts under way.
As Sen. Edward Kennedy reminded us in December:
"The president has said that American lives will be sacrificed if
Congress does not change FISA.
"But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does
not grant retroactive immunity.
"No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the president at his
word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone
companies."
And that literally cannot be. Even Mr. Bush could not overtly
take a step that actually aids the terrorists. I am not talking about
ethics here. I am talking about blame. If the president seems to be
throwing the baby out with the bath water, it means we can safely
conclude there is no baby.
Because if there were, sir, now that you have vetoed an extension
of this eavesdropping, if some terrorist attack were to follow, you
would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists. You would
not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people.
You would not merely be guilty of stupidity. You would not merely be
guilty of treason, sir.
You would be personally, and eternally, responsible.
And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing
that you have proved time and time again - it is that you are never
responsible.
As recently ago as 2006, we spoke words like these with
trepidation.
The idea that even the most cynical and untrustworthy of
politicians in our history, George W. Bush, would use the literal
form of terrorism against his own people was dangerous territory. It
seemed to tempt fate, to heighten fear.
We will not fear any longer. We will not fear the international
terrorists, and we will thwart them. We will not fear the recognition
of the manipulation of our yearning for safety, and we will call it
what it is: terrorism. We will not fear identifying the vulgar
hypocrites in our government, and we will name them. And we will not
fear George W. Bush. Nor will we fear because George W. Bush wants us
to fear.
Follow ups:
Senate OKs New Rules on Eavesdropping
http://apnews.myway.com:80/article/20080213/D8UP3K000.html
Bush Spy Bill Stance Called Fear-Mongering
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/national/main3829931.shtml?source=mostpop_story
Mark Klein Whistleblower at AT&T
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2930944
Bush wants "all or nothing". Let's give him nothing.
Tell Congress
NO IMMUNITY FOR FASCIST SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS
Call YOUR Congressman
at 866 340-9281
1-800-833-6354
1-877-762-8762
1-866-808-0065
1-888-355-3588
1-866-220-0044
NOW!
Call THE President
at 202 456-1111
NOW!
Send a message from this web page:
http://capwiz.com/jbs/home/