I’m still too ill to put two coherent sentences together. But I think this is interesting.
[Sen. Patrick] Leahy revealed that Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will chair a new subcommittee on human rights. The new panel’s agenda will include overseeing legislation on torture and detainee treatment.
That will give Dick Durbin something high profile to do. Leahy looks like he means business.
“This administration has been less and less willing to let us know what they are doing,” Leahy said in prepared remarks obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and the government’s secretive terrorism risk assessments of Americans traveling abroad merit a closer look by his panel, Leahy said.
“Americans’ privacy is a price the Bush administration is willing to pay for the cavalier way it is spawning new databanks,” he said in the prepared text. “We are way overdue in catching up to the erosion of privacy, and the Judiciary Committee now will help to bring this picture into focus.”
Also on the agenda, Leahy said, is a bill he has introduced to crack down on war profiteering in Iraq. The measure would prohibit profiteering and fraud by contractors in connection with a war, relief or reconstruction efforts and set stiff punishments of prison time and fines.
Me likes. I think I am going to enjoy watching C-SPAN next year.
In browsing some old Washington Post articles earlier today, I found a reference to Frank Church expressing concern over the totalitarian possibilities of ever-widening bugging operations. I wonder what he would think of our near total surveillance society?
I’m constantly amazed others aren’t up in arms about this. Only the Germans really seem to get what privacy means, after having lived through the Nazi regime….
This is the first I’ve heard of proposed legislation against profiteering.
Fantastic.
Aside: BooMan, you seem to be doing pretty well re coherence, despite illness. Hope you can kick it soon. Be sure to support your digestive system with heavy duty antibiotics! Think ‘active yogurt cultures’.
and take some acidopholis pills while you’re on the antibiotics. or eat yogurt, which also helps with…well, let’s not talk about that now.
great catch! happy, happy news. now that i live in DC, i miss the good guys from IL, and durbin is surely one of them.
A very important regimen in fighting this disease is rest in huge piles. Rest rest rest. Even when you think it`s over, take it easy, & gradually go back to your routine. IANAD
showing up lately that makes me say Ahhhhhhhh.