The Constitution dies a little every day these days

For some heretofore unknown reason, Congressional Democrats seem determined to help the Republican Party destroy what's left of the Constitution. You may not have heard of the latest round of Amendment-shredding, mostly because our right wing press doesn't want you to know how severely the country is dying. Our Constitution has something called the 4th Amendment, which states, "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." This has been construed, quite reasonably, to cover not only physical "searches and seizures", but also more ethereal possessions such as emails, phone calls, and all other forms of electronic communication. In other words, nobody is supposed to be able to tap your phone, collect your emails, capture your texts, or read your computer's files without probable cause, to be determined by a judge who would then issue a warrant. Otherwise, the government would be able to break in to your house and take all your stuff (or record all of your phone calls and emails) for no reason except that someone wants to. Idiots say, "Hey, if you have nothing to hide, why would you need protection?" To which I say, "So, you're ok with having all of your hard earned possessions seized by the government or the police? What the hell's wrong with you?" The point of the 4th Amendment, other than the obvious restriction on the enactment of a police state by anyone in power, is to help protect people from the government's ability to overwhelm the resources of the individual to speak and write freely, even when in opposition to that government.
You see, 7 years ago--before 9/11/01, by the way--Smirky, Dick, and the boys began coercing the telecom industry into allowing the government spooks to tap (literally) into the phone lines of everybody in this country, in order to create a massive database of conversations. The why is completely irrelevant, but like any good legal drama, motive goes a long way to explaining how a crime is committed. The goal of those who fight to undermine the 4th Amendment is to eliminate political opposition by finding weaknesses and dirt. This should sound familiar to anyone who remembers a scandal from decades past--Watergate. It was Nixon's dream to have at his disposal the conversations taking place beyond his reach, and now his henchmen are finally succeeding in achieving that vision.
You see, the telecoms rolled over in this anti-Constitutional ploy--except for Qwest, who refused, and for its principled stand lost all its government contracts--and are now in the process of getting sued by some people who discovered that they were being spied upon. The costs of legal discovery, whereby all records of telecom illegalities would be exposed to the light of day, would be enormous given the sheer bulk of conversations recorded. Each instance of violation--every single phone call made by every American, in other words--would be liable for prosecution. Clearly, even if an award of damage of just $1 per call were levied, and probably even much less than that, the telecoms would be bankrupted instantly. Beyond that, though, the telecoms would also have to release records showing that the Bush Administration ordered this mass violation of our rights. Unless, of course, they could somehow be relieved of their legal responsibilities.
And that is where our supposedly Democratic Congress is playing its role. In a most sickeningly ironic twist, a bill for revising the anti-Watergate FISA regulation (which provides for the judicial "oversight" of attaining warrants for domestic tapping), which has already passed the Senate, is going to be on the House floor this week. This bill includes a provision granting retroactive amnesty for the telecoms that have been allowing the government to spy on us for over 7 years, and it is becoming quite clear that a majority of our politicians in Congress have no problem passing this abortion.
To sum up, Congress is going to enable the Executive Branch of the Federal government to spy on anyone/everyone it wants to without any safeguards or legal pretense, thereby gutting the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Under most circumstances, we the people would have one last recourse--the Supreme Court, who has the responsibility of making sure Congress passes no law that is unconstitutional, just like this one. After 28 years of right wing packing, however, the Republican-dominated Court is highly unlikely to rule that way. 4 of the current Court members are already on record as supporting this kind of Executive Branch power. (Does the phrase "Unitary Executive" ring any bells out there? It should for anybody who was paying attention during the confirmation hearings of Roberts and Alito.) It only takes one more vote to complete this evisceration of a right that has stood for 232 years. And remember, 3 of the remaining 5 justices were appointed by Republican Presidents also.
So, you might want to get used to the idea that the government has the power to know everything you say and do, even/especially when you are at "home".

200!

According to the handy dandy post numberer on Blogger, this is my 200th post on Surly Librarian. I know the odds are against my even reaching 300, given my incredible slowdown over the last year, so I thought I'd give a little extra for this milestone.
The reason for my declining writing pace should have been in exultation (is there another time of year anyone ever uses that word?) after last November's stunning Democratic "takeovers" of the House and Senate, but let's face facts, the massively underwhelming amount of activity in Congress pretty much shoots that theory out of the water, eh? I suppose the truth is that I was hoping that the 2006 election would mean more than it does; my overall feeling of depression for the sake of our country's future has dampened my enthusiasm for pointing out Smirky and the gang's sins. I mean, there are so many of them, right? And nobody in a position of power seems to care. The simple fact is, most Congresspeople are so out of touch with what they've been put there to do, those of us paying attention are losing faith. Are we any closer to getting out of the Middle East? Nope. Are we any closer to getting off our addiction to oil? No. Are we retrieving any of our lost civil liberties? No. Have we even begun any investigations that might lead to impeaching the felonious members of the Administration? Not since Pat Fitzgerald's hollow conviction of Scooter, and that was done before 11/06.
The obvious question in response to all of these is: why? Why haven't the Democrats moved on any of these (or any others even more intrinsic to modern Democracy, such as reauthorizing the Fairness Doctrine for media, reregulating industries to guard against their misbehavior, tossing out restrictions on legal awards for the winners of civil lawsuits, and so many more)? Why are we squandering the good will earned with the public over the last few years by not being incompetent, corrupt, and vindictively screwing over everyone except the super-rich (i.e., by not being Republican)?
The cynical answer is that the majority of Democrats in office are no different than the Republicans; let's call this the "Naderite" position, since this was Ralph Nader's stated raison d'etre for running for President in 2000--thereby helping to saddle the world with Smirky, by the way. Is it true? The more time goes by without any substantive changes being made, the more likely it is, although it is still really hard to argue that we'd even be talking about this kind of stuff if we were in the 6th year of a Gore Administration (even a Gore-Lieberman one!). (In other words, while the parties themselves may be 2 sides of the same coin, I hardly think that President Gore could have been in any conceivable way similar to Smirky the solipsist.)
Those still retaining faith in the Democratic Party as a whole claim that the reason nothing is being done is that their majorities simply aren't big enough to accomplish what needs to be done, but the truth is that nothing should be "getting done" that follows any similar path the previous Congresses were pursuing. If the Democrats do indeed possess an ideology that runs counter to the Republicans, they would be passing bills left and right for the betterment of the country (if not the world at large) regardless of whether they become laws. Taking a stand for something usually means not compromising or "doing the nation's business", at least until enough opponents begin making serious concessions of their own, especially when your stances are supported by big majorities of the public. I have yet to see much evidence of that from this Congress, let alone even a shred of self-respecting insistence on following the laws of the country. (Remember the subpoenas issued to Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten? None of those three are in jail for refusing to respond, and that was over 5 months ago . . .)
For some reason, the Democrats think that they should be doing something, meaning that they should be getting bills passed that will receive Smirky's signature. They think that the public wants "bipartisanship", or "compromise", or new laws to be created regardless of their actual effects. This is nuts, of course, because any bill they pass that Smirky would sign is, ipso facto, not a bill that any Democrat--really, any thinking human being--should want to get signed by that wretched scumbag! How hard is that to understand? Smirky and the rest of the felons with an "R" next to their name do not compromise, they do not barter, they do not behave rationally, and they don't care about you or anyone else but themselves, get it? Stop behaving as if there is going to be some magic enlightenment on the other side of the aisle or at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. at some point if you play nice, ok? Haven't the last 13 years given you enough proof of their character? For chrissakes, all you have to do is pay attention to your own polling; the American public is telling you what we want, and more pillaging by the Republicans ain't it. What part of STOP ROLLING OVER don't you get?
(Clearly, the "STOP" part, but I digress.)
*sigh*