Defeat Terror Democratically

Need more evidence that Feingold is the most honorable and rational choice of Democratic candidates for '08?

Democrat wants Bush censured on eavesdropping
Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress should censure President George W. Bush for ordering domestic eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a warrant, a Democratic senator said on Sunday.

Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin told ABC's "This Week" that he intends to push for a resolution that would censure the president for what he considers an unlawful wiretapping program authorized by the White House after the September 11 attacks.

"It's an unusual step," Feingold said of the measure he plans to introduce in the Senate on Monday. "It's a big step. But what the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping, has to be answered."

This is the only way to ensure, out front and before the eyes of our children and the world, that Americans have not forgotten that it is individual Liberty and Responsibility, along with conscientious and diligent government, which have made our nation one of the most brightly shining examples of the halting but none-the-less progressive nature of our species.

We don't spy on our own citizens. No matter what the environment of the larger political world, such invasions of personal privacy are not merely prohibited by the US Constitution, they are circumscribed in the Fourth Amendment in order to provide the government a means to defend the people from insidious and vicious enemies within our Land of the Free. To whit:

Amendment IV - Search and seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gave the President authorization to secure information for up to 15 days without a Court Order. Since the invasion of Iraq, this provision has been used in an ever increasing manner by an Administration that has repeatedly shown it will obfuscate the facts in order to gain it's desires.

• Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? None. Just as Hans Blix's team reported.

• Iraqi ties to al Qaeda? Almost exclusively involving our friends the Kurds and various Shia fighting against Saddam in Iraq.

• Nigerian uranium sales to Saddam? Forgive the hyperbole but, puhlease!
  

There are not only very few reasons to trust this Administration with extended powers of personal surveillance, there is ample evidence that they simply should not even be trusted with the Constitutionally proscribed powers of the Executive which George Walker Bush has been democratically elected to control.

Feingold's call for Censure is not, as neo-Republican theocrat Frist suggests: "...just wrong. He is flat wrong. He is dead wrong." Rather it is a brilliant and sublime example of the confidence and pride in American democratic values which all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, espouse and embrace. It is the Right Thing because it revitalizes both the Letter and the Spirit of the Preamble to our nation's Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

If you are registered voter in the United States, I urge you to utilize the following link and Take Action in backing Senator Feingold's call for censure. The more we - WE THE PEOPLE - let this administration break the Rules of our fair and beautiful and free nation, the more insidiously shall we experience all of those things which make it such subsumed into an ideology of Fear, Greed and Irresponsibility.


Lest I forget: A doff o' me cap to Lindsay on Majikthise for my first sighting of Feingold's call for censure.