Shame

4:05 pm EST May 11th, 2006 | Politics | 11 Comments

The Rubber Stamp Republican Culture of Corruption has gotta end.

“Shame on us,” Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) said today as he held up a copy of USA Today’s phone-record story, the one that prompted the President of the United States to trot himself out in front of reporters and say, well, say nothing that helps explain why the government in the name of fighting Al Qaeda is contracting with phone companies to catalogue billions of phone calls made by regular old Americans.

Shame on Congress is right. Only one branch of government can proactively perform a check on what the NSA is doing at the behest of the White House. Only one branch can force the executive branch to justify its massive and logically-suspect dragnet. Only one can require those telephone companies to publically explain why their customers were not informed of the data collection, much less defended from it. And yet that branch is both unable and unwilling to do anything meaningful to at least force both the snoopers and their corporate conspirators to come clean. It is a dark hour for the legislative branch of the federal government.

Please tell me, why is it that congress and the President are on the side of the terrorists?

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11 Responses to “Shame”

  1. TomY says:
    May 11, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    Conservatives have no problem giving Osama exactly what he wants, so long as it helps them get what they want domestically. Win-win. What has the GOP become?

  2. TomY says:
    May 11, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    “We’re not mining” — Bush, today. Lying is the least of his faults. Undisputedly the worst President in modern history. Just like with Watergate, ten years from now, not even conservatives will be arguing it. They’ll be touting someone new, and claiming Bush was a freak accident of 9/11 who in no way represented conservatism anyway. You can see seeds of this sprouting all over the conservative blogosphere. Of course, the trolls are the last to figure it out (Hi, Frank and Dugger!).

  3. Oliver Willis says:
    May 11, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    There’d be no problem with them doing that, as long as they don’t drop a load on the constitution in the process, mmmkay?

  4. william says:
    May 11, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    Yes, it’s a shame that our government is conducting data mining operations in an effort to catch would-be terrorists. Shame on them.

  5. buma says:
    May 11, 2006 at 6:05 pm

    Oversight schmoversight. What’s another few points lower on the approval scale? You can bet duggerpedro and hedleyfrank still think bush knows what’s right for us, no matter how far the GOP carries us toward fascism. After all, if those tens of millions of Americans have nothing to fear if they are innocent. Who should care if they’re being monitored? Why, we are feeling safer and safer every day.

  6. Frank_D says:
    May 11, 2006 at 6:05 pm

    Tommy: When will it ever sink into your thick head that the definition of “troll” is not “someone who is not a liberal”?
    Osama wants us to monitor phone calls! The terrorists have won!

  7. william says:
    May 11, 2006 at 6:05 pm

    From the USA Today article -

    This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity.

    No listening, no recording, no monitoring. Ew scarry facist McHaliBusHitler!

  8. Oliver Willis says:
    May 11, 2006 at 7:05 pm

    It’s not labeling if they’re actually doing it.

  9. SaveFarris says:
    May 11, 2006 at 7:05 pm

    Remember when it was completely outrageous to label your opponents as supporting our enemies?

    Even for you, Oliver, this is pretty shameful.

  10. Frank_D says:
    May 11, 2006 at 7:05 pm

    The calls are not being monitored. Only their exisyence is being noted (e.g., 703 123-4567 to 11 – 12 -3456 5 mins)

  11. Roni says:
    May 11, 2006 at 8:05 pm

    Frank_D Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
    The calls are not being monitored. Only their exisyence is being noted (e.g., 703 123-4567 to 11 – 12 -3456 5 mins)

    You don’t seriously believe that “all” they’re doing is noting, not monitoring, phonecalls …? You canNOT be that naive, Frank.

    Wake up and smell the morning tea you’re drinking.