Daily Constitutional: The Other “N” Word

Today’s offering is an eclectic salad of topics that are catching my eye.  Please add your own eye-catchers.

Stirrings of Populism?

The traditional media has steadfastly refused to cover domestic surveillance and the stripping of the Fourth Amendment until just recently, when a little ray of light escaped from that black hole.  What happened?
The equivalent of a roller shade suddenly losing its spring and popping up unexpectedly in the form of the House Democrats unexpectedly refusing [...]

History Repeats

Which one isn’t like the others? 
The key that people who claim that you have nothing to fear if you aren’t doing anything wrong, is that no distinctions are made at all.  Doing something wrong is beside the point.  Invasion of privacy and a police state are used to control, to subdue and to gain full [...]

Fix FISA

This email just arrived from Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative John Conyers. The link takes you to the Fix FISA Congressional email generator.

Dear Annie,
As the chairmen of the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees tasked with modernizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), we are working hard in Congress to pass a FISA bill that [...]

Patriots: Spies of the American Revolution

They weren’t who you think they were.

During the Revolutionary War, women applied the traditional skills they learned as homemakers to espionage work.  Both the British and American armies recruited housewives and young girls as cooks and maids. With their almost unrestricted access to soldiers’ campsites, these women could eavesdrop on conversations about troop movements, leadership [...]

Daily Constitutional: Legislative Branch Killing the Fourth Amendment

The Washington Post reports about the legislative branch failure to apply the necessary checks and balances to save the remaining Fourth Amendment rights.
House and Senate Democratic leaders are headed into talks today that they say could lead to a breakthrough on legislation to revamp domestic surveillance powers and grant phone companies some form of immunity [...]

Daily Constitutional: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree?

Today’s brain fodder:  Some bloggers have speculated that all Supreme Court decisions after the 2000 decision installing George W. Bush as President may be moot if they result as “fruit of the poisonous tree“. Iraq is disappeared by the Bush loyalist media, and the news about Iraq is now squarely housed on the web and [...]

NPR Interview: Mike McConnell Shouts, “BOO!” - Sheet Reveals Lying Liar

NPR interview podcast here.
Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, told Renee Montagne the main issue is liability protection for the private sector.
“We can’t do this mission without their help,” he said. “Currently there is no retroactive liability protection for them. They’re being sued for billions of dollars.”
He said the lawsuits are causing them to be [...]

The Crux of the Argument to Balance the Needs of National Security with Invasions of Privacy

One of Glenn Greenwald’s commenters, “bystander”, eloquently frames the argument:

inside a politician’s head (what a frightening thought)
I’ve wondered about the calculus of fear, too.
I am not confused. The odds are there will be other terrorist attempts, and sooner or later, one of them will succeed. The solution, I think, is to make the explicit case [...]

Silvestre Reyes to Bush: “We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution.”

More signs that the Members of the House have had more than enough of Bush’s “all fear all the time” fascism:

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
The Preamble to our Constitution states that one of our highest duties as public officials is to “provide for the common defence.” As [...]

Pow Wow: In Response To Presidential Propaganda About A “Bipartisan” FISA

Pow Wow is a commenter at Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory  blog on Salon.com.  The following is a crossposted treatise on bipartisanship vis a vis the untruthful way in which Bush uses the term.
“Bipartisanship”(or, better, nonpartisanship) as it really is, in the real world - when not being used as a manipulative political football by the [...]

Who Eviscerated the Fourth Amendment

[updated to add the vote on the bill.  The vote to invoke cloture is below. ]
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress - 2nd Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary

Question: On Passage of the Bill (S.2248 as Amended )

Vote Number:
20
Vote [...]

Pow Wow: The Senate has asked for it. It is our duty to give it to them.

Pow Wow writes from the comments at Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory at Salon.com.

Senate Votes on FISA and Retroactive Immunity

Chronicles of Dissent has the Senate actions  this morning.  RIP Fourth Amendment.  Consider yourselves notified:  you ARE being surveilled.

Daily Constitutional: More Fourth Amendment

More Daily Constitutional discoveries.  Busy day in the Senate, where votes on the amendments to limit retroactive immunity for compliant corporations are going down in flames.  Watch how the Fourth Amendment is being eviscerated.  What does this mean for you?