This is either a demented joke, or the idea of a mad man who truly believes he will never leave office. It also sounds like something the Democrats in Congress will eventually agree to so their Rethug opponents can’t run “The Dems Love Al Qaeda!” ads against them this Fall.

A Bush administration program to expand domestic use of Pentagon spy satellites has aroused new concerns in Congress about possible civil-liberties abuses.

On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment denying money for the new domestic intelligence operation—cryptically named the “National Applications Office”—until the Homeland Security secretary certifies that any programs undertaken by the center will “comply with all existing laws, including all applicable privacy and civil liberties standards.”

Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on intelligence, told Newsweek that majorities in both the House and Senate intend to block all funding for the domestic intelligence center at least until August, when the Government Accountability Office, an investigative agency that works for Congress, completes a report examining civil-liberties and privacy issues related to the domestic use of picture-taking spy satellites. […]

Harman said that she had discussed the administration’s plans for expanding domestic use of picture-taking spy satellites—which are supposedly capable of taking very high-resolution photographs of buildings, vehicles and people—with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. According to Harman, he promised strict procedures to protect the rights of Americans, including obtaining court authorization for law enforcement-related surveillance operations where appropriate. Despite Chertoff’s assurances, however, Harman said that Congress probably would not fully approve the program until the administration is more explicit about how it would operate.

And I should trust Jane Harman’s word that she won’t let Bush use satellites to spy on us, the word of someone who agreed to the FISA cave-in, because . . . ?