Greatest career path, ever. Mental note: little flag pins.
By Marke B.
I love it. Really! Congress has just voted in a basic legal carte blanche for the Administration to spy on Americans’ emails and phone convos without any court review. Ostensibly, the new law is only to target foreigners who talk to Americans by allowing the government to tap into fiber optic networks based in the US (previously they could only tap into those based on foreign soil) — and the Administration promises — PROMISES — not to use any tips obtained this way to go after Americans on the one end of the conversation. I believe them! Only foreigners are terrorists anyway (sorry, Oklahoma).
The best parts?
*Telecommunications companies must obey the government on this. No more of those pesky legal challenges from the more skeptical among them that were gumming up the spyworks. And no more of that free market hooey from our overlords. Just make the corporations do what you want. Terror!
*Bye-bye to FISA, the oversight court set up in the ’70s in reaction to Nixonian dirty tricks re: domestic spying. Guess who gets final approval on who gets spied on when? ALBERTO GONZALES. Guess all that lying and “misremembering” and total dereliction of basic duty evidenced when he was in the congressional hotseats — what, three times in the past 3 months? — convinced Congress that he should be in charge of the nation’s privacy. Way to go Alberto! I’ve GOT to try your tactics in my own career.
Remind me why I was happy about the Dems taking Congress again? WTF?