Are we really supposed to believe that the threat of foreign terrorism justifies throwing out the BIll of Rights? The FISA law as it stood gave the Feds plenty of leeway in conducting surveillance -- it even allowed them to get warrants retroactively. But that wasn't good enough for Bush. While lying to the American people by telling them that all the spying was being done with the required judicial oversight, he was directing his administration to break the law and and tap our phones and emails with no warrants at all.

Two years ago a definitive speech was given at Constitution Hall in DC that thoroughly outlined the Administration's trangressions (only weeks after they had been leaked to the press) and made the case for why we shouldn't let them stand. Here's one vital point, among others:



Highly reccommended: the whole speech.

Nowadays, Bush has rammed legislation through that nominally legalizes his abuse of power. And he's insisted that, even though a new FISA bill is required to protect the lives of Americans, he will veto any bill that does not include required immunity (get out of jail free card) for all of the telecom companies that gladly helped him break the law by plugging the NSA into their customers' private communications. By his own reasoning, as the Teddy K. points out below, protecting the big phone companies from prosecution is more important than protecting the lives of Americans!



Let freedom ring.

-jw

P.S. I should update this to include linked sources. Maybe later, but I have to crash.