House renews FISA, approves telecom immunity
- June 21st, 2008
- 4 Comments
Y’all have probably heard of FISA, the part of the U.S. Code that deals with electronic surveillance and the like. We care here because good ol’ AT&T more or less bent over backwards for the federal government, letting the NSA eavesdrop on certain telephone calls. (Wikipedia has a tremendous amount of information on the subject.)
Well guess what—the House of Representatives yesterday passed a renewal of the law. Now we wait for the Senate to rubber stamp it.
The best perspective on the House’s action has to be from Arstechnica. It quotes an Arizona congressman who (purposely?) misattributes a rather scary quote to Thomas Jefferson. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” said Rep. Trent Franks.
Wow, really, is it? That, quite literally, doesn’t sound like freedom, then. If you’re “eternally” being watched, I would say your liberty is under constant threat, then.
Then you’ve got hack politicians blathering on and on about how “My goodness, look how great the Congress is when we work together.” Yes, great. Nothing like running behind the veil of national security in an election year.
You wanna see how awesome our Congress is? Check out this video I saw on Wonkette just now. That’s the type of day-to-day nonsense that happens.
And yes, the telecoms, your AT&Ts and Verizons, are immune from any lawsuits relating to unwarranted surveillance. Amazing what money buys today.
Julian Sanchez (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Well, the quotation in itself isn’t scary; it’s Franks’ misuse of it. The “eternal vigilance” was supposed to be the “eternal vigilance” of the people against government officials who would strip away their rights. Franks perverts it to mean the “eternal vigilance” of the government surveillance, protecting our “freedom” from terrorist threats.
Susan Sackinger (Who am I?)
5 months ago
It’s not Franks who misused the quote, it’s Deleon. At least that’s what it reads like. Note he didn’t quote enough of his source to let the reader know if Franks used it correctly or incorrectly.
xoites (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Repeal FISA is up and running. Anyone who wants to is welcome to sign up and become a Poster on it. The purpose of the blog is to organize a drive to repeal the FISA laws and all laws that pardon or give immunity from prosecution anyone who has violated the Constitution during the Bush Administration.
That is why we want everyone to be able to Post so they can start a conversation about an idea they have to make this happen.
Stop on by and check it out. By all means leave a comment and sign up to blog with us as we figure out what needs to be done to return our Fourth Amendment Rights and our rule of law.
If you have a blog already and you become a poster we will link to your site.
http://repealfisa.wordpress.com/
AzActivist (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Franks is more than just a poor interpreter of Jefferson’s words. Franks is still hiding the fact that he took money from Jack Abramoff’s lobbys.
He has 20 years of connections to corrupt politics, money deals, and illegal actions — and he has yet to represent the people in his district to congress.
For more information to illegal doantions to Franks, check the url: http://myparty.dyndns.org/dm/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=1