Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Waterboarding Lamar Smith on Truth Serum
I’m utterly embarrassed to say that Lamar Smith (R - Naturally) is my congressman. Unfortunately, he was one of the beneficiaries of DeLay’s Power Grab™. And he goes all out demonstrating why he sucks as a congressman. He does more projection than a 24-screen multiplex* in accusing Democrats of politicizing national security by fighting retroactive immunity for telecoms who participate in Bush’s illegal domestic spying program. In response, I thought it appropriate to run his op-ed in the Moonie-run Washington Times through the truth serum filter. As usual, struck out text is text that would not be “uttered” if the subject were on truth serum, and italicized red text is text that would be “spoken” if the subject were on truth serum.
Congress has less than a week up to a year from Friday** to make sure our intelligence officials do not lose critical tools they need to monitor terrorists overseas Democrats and disrupt plots against our nation attempts to hold The Most Holy George W. Christ to the rule of law. Democrats must act now and pass a permanent fix to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rubber stamp the president’s blatant subversion of the law.
Last year, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell notified Congress about a dangerous loophole in our ability to collect intelligence information overseas lied to Democrats to scare them into passing piss poor legislation. Recent technological changes President Bush’s stubborn refusal to comply with FISA prevented intelligence agents from listening to overseas terrorists without a court order even though he could get a warrant retroactively; even though FISA is one of the most up-to-date laws on the books; and even though the FISA court has only rejected a handful of warrant requests in its entire history. Mr. McConnell estimated pulled out of his ass the claim that the intelligence community was “missing” two-thirds of all overseas terrorist communications.
To address the intelligence community’s concerns cower in the face of the president’s fearmongering and naked partisanship, Congress passed the Protect America Big Brother Act in August of last year. That Act is set to expire in the next few days. A permanent legislative fix is necessary to ensure that our intelligence officials can obtain critical information about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and other international terrorist networks better spy on Democrats, “libruls,” union organizers, feminists and vegans.
After six months of stalling, Democrats now come perilously close to threatening every American’s safety The Most Holy George W. Christ’s dictatorial reign. Too busy launching political attacks against the administration reasonably explaining why the changes the president wants are unconstitutional, House Democrats ignored caved into Mr. McConnell’s request snarling demands and instead passed a bill that undercut the intelligence community’s the president’s ability to protect our nation take a shit on the Constitution. and granted unprecedented rights to terrorists. Rather than support the intelligence community’s the GOP’s efforts, House Democrats bowed to the demands of liberal interest groups those commie traitor bastards Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington and passed an unrealistic and impracticable undesirable, but infinitely saner law that the Senate has rightly wrongly ignored.
As the deadlines near, the intelligence community’s Republican Party’s urgent needs must be addressed. This is no time for partisanship but for responsible action. Which is precisely why I’m engaging in naked partisanship.
(1) Congress has a responsibility to ensure that the original intent of FISA is preserved by allowing intelligence surveillance on foreign targets without a court order. When originally passed, the law imposed no restrictions on monitoring foreign terrorists. Osama bin Laden and other terrorists are not entitled to privacy protections under the U.S. Constitution. President Bush gets to spy on his political enemies. Otherwise, he’ll just fling feces at you and call you a bunch of poopyheads.
(2) Congress must provide liability protection to U.S. telecommunication companies that responded to government requests helped the president break the law, except when the federal government wouldn’t pay up,*** following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Liberal privacy groups filed close to 40 lawsuits against the telephone companies. These companies deserve our thanks a free pass for rank criminality, not a flurry of frivolous lawsuits being held criminally liable for aiding the Lawbreaker-in-Chief.
The intelligence community needs a permanent fix to legal loopholes in our intelligence laws to be subverted towards partisan purposes, just like when we had the FBI rooting around in President Clinton’s zipper and sniffing Senator Clinton’s panties when they could’ve been looking into the activities of Mohammed Atta and his buddies. Rather than support another temporary extension, the Senate should pass a strong, bipartisan bill. And by “bipartisan,” I mean that Democrats should just bend over and take it up the butt! And when they do, the House should act quickly, pass the bill and send it to the president to make sure that our intelligence laws are strong and our country is safe rank partisanship and fearmongering always take precedent over keeping our country safe.
* Hat tip, ThinkProgress.
** via the ACLU blog
*** via Reuters
