Bush's Final Year aims for one last domestic triumph: permanent expansion of government spy powers

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Bush's Final Year
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, January 2, 2008

As President Bush begins his final year in office, the White House is aiming for one last major domestic legislative triumph: permanent expansion of government spy powers, including retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that assisted in warrantless surveillance.

In an impromptu briefing aboard Air Force One, as Bush returned to Washington from his Texas vacation yesterday, White House counselor Ed Gillespie told reporters that an administration-supported bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is Bush's top priority. "FISA is front and center," Gillespie said, according to a pool report from New York Times White House correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg. "If it is allowed to lapse we will be less safe as a country."

When Congress caved to White House pressure in August, it authorized continued warrantless eavesdropping only until Feb. 1. Now, the White House wants the move made permanent. "Terrorists do not work on six month time frames," Gillespie said. Senate Democrats were poised to once again give Bush everything he wanted last month, until the threat of a filibuster by Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd led Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid to postpone a vote until late January.

Why is this such a big deal to the White House? Eric Lichtblau, James Risen and Scott Shane explained in the New York Times last month: "At stake is the federal government's extensive but uneasy partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime. "The N.S.A.'s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before, according to government and industry officials, yet that alliance is strained by legal worries and the fear of public exposure."

In short, it's a historic battle over the future of the country as a surveillance state....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/02/BL2008010201493.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[aquart]

1. And won't the Democratic president have fun with those.

Georgie is so myopic I'm surprised Barney hasn't been trained as a guide dog.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Yeah, maybe.

The first thought I had was "I wonder for whom he thinks he's doing this? What does he know--or think he knows--that we don't?" The possible answers to these questions scare the livin' shit out of me.

[Mountainman]

5. Yes, why would he give a shit if he has only one year left? I don't believe for one

minute he cares about the best interests of the country but rather he cares about the best interests of himself and his henchmen.

[aquart]

12. Seriously, is there a Republican he'd do a favor for?

Except for money, of course.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. OK, a couple of possibilities.

First, maybe he's not planning to leave. You know--bomb Iran, declare marital law :tinfoilhat:

Second, I have never for a moment suspected that he didn't have handlers somewhere, and maybe the handlers are setting things up for Shrub's successor--like, oh, I dunno...Hillary?

[Horse with no Name]

15. Me too.

I try to be optimistic, but there is lingering dread about what could happen.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. These people are seriously nuts.

I don't think it would be very smart not to be scared--at least a little.

[VP505]

4. There is another

scenario that may well be underway, unbeknown to the American Idol watching peons. Maybe Bu$hCo has NO intention of leaving the White House in 09 and will be ready to drop that turd into the punch bowl later this year...

[bdamomma]

7. there will be a revolution/confrontation if they don't leave.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. Yes, there will be. n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

14. What, they gonna

send Nancy Pelosi in to tell him to leave?

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. I'm afraid you may be wise to consider this

.
.
.

I don't think the Neocons are ready to let loose of the reigns

1984

just 24 years late

[aquart]

11. No.

For one thing, he has zero military support, so good luck with that.

For another, ambitious REPUBLICANS wouldn't support it.

So take your pitiful paranoid fantasies and stuff them in an orifice. We have REAL problems.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. Such lofty goals from little lord pissypants...

F U you disgusting excuse for a man.

[SeattleGirl]

6. He is a disgusting excuse for a man, but unfortunately, so far he's

continued getting everything he wants, even with the so-called opposition party having the majority in congress (and yes, it's an almost nil majority in the Senate).

[dysfunctional press]

9. can anyone explain to me why "retroactive immunity" would NOT be considered a law of expost facto?

i.e. after the fact...and therefore Unconstitutional on it's face?

[donkeyotay]

17. I can't explain it. Nonsense is sense. Up is down. It's the new normal.

Same thing with passing laws against torture, while ignoring the fact that it was already illegal. :shrug:

[Orwellian_Ghost]

18. K&R