While I am confident that none of this would be any better if John McCain or Mitt Romney had been elected president, I can’t dispute anything that Glenn Greenwald said about the FISA reauthorization. He’s right.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
In the 1970’s, there were a couple of reporters that began investigating and reporting on the break-in of the DNC headquarters, a judge that presided over the trial of the burglars brooked no bs, Congress reluctantly opened hearings into the misdeeds of the Nixon administration which led to AG Richardson agreeing to appoint an independent special counsel, Archibald Cox. On order from Nixon, SG Robert Bork fired Cox. That put impeachment on the table. Campaign finance reform and FISA, in part, were the legislative actions of Congress in response to the criminality of the Nixon gang.
Now reporters clear investigations of administrations before publishing and/or bury reports until after elections, Congress passes legislation giving retroactive and prospective immunity for executive law-breaking, and impeachment is permanently off-the-table. And the Democratic POTUS is free to spy on Occupy and lock up Bradley Manning and Jeremy Hammond without trial for years.
Of course that was back before bi-partisanship was a DC fetish and being elected or appointed did come with a grant of immunity.
…both of whom have since completely sold out and have become political mouthpieces instead of investigative reporters.
On a secondary note, I’d like to know where all the AR-15 wielding superpatriots were to defend us from this act of tyranny.
I stopped reading after the first line.
I was looking for a piece about FISA reauthorization, not Glenn Greenwald’s ongoing psychodrama.
On this, he’s basically right. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I put a lot of trust in senators like Wyden and Tom Udall and Merkley. If they tell me this isn’t right, I believe them. Without the benefit of classified briefings, they are my only entry point into whatever thinking is going on in this regard. Is Obama justified in doing a 180? He hasn’t explained himself, and his administration’s arguments have been positively Brazilian.
Do you realize how painful that must have been for Boo to write? Did you watch any of Feinstein’s arguments?
Actually, I did. I’m not even disagreeing with you.
Which is exactly the point: there is no shortage of reliable, accurate, fair reporting on this issue that opposes FISA reauthorization, but that also demonstrates a commitment to truthfulness, and doesn’t treat the issue as merely Exhibit Z in some longstanding internet slap fight.
Unlike Greenwald’s piece.
I’d like to ask you if there’s anything in Greenwald’s articles that you found inaccurate or taken out of context, but you’ve stated that you stopped reading after the first line. But really, that’s the question that I’d like to ask you.
Thanks for the excellent link. I agree with you on both points.
The idea of divided government was that each branch would be jealous of its own prerogatives. And the idea of democracy was that each faction would restrain itself from amassing powers that might fall to its opponents after the next election. How these two principles broke is the book I’d like to read. BTW, this is why I’m so strongly opposed to any impulse to carry water for Democrats.
The NDAA and FISA action have prompted questions in my neighborhood about who exactly is running the US government. It doesn’t seem to be the President and Congress when it comes to civil liberties related to the intelligence community.
Has the secret government become too powerful for oversight by the public government?