Secrecy and the Rule of Law: Connecting the Dots

Senator Chris Dodd made a statement on the Senate floor on Friday, January 25th during the cloture debate on Bush’s FISA bill – the one granting retroactive immunity to America’s telecom giants for aiding and abetting Bushco’s rampant lawbreaking. The statement well explains what’s wrong with the entire situation in which we find ourselves after 7 long years of the decidedly un-American “Unitary Executive” – a.k.a. “The Deciderer.”

Dodd had threatened to filibuster the bill last month, so Harry Reid was forced to withdraw it from debate until last Friday, when Dodd again threatened filibuster. Reid then put off the cloture vote until today, January 28th. Senators Clinton and Obama, who were out of town campaigning in South Carolina on Friday, are scheduled to be present for this afternoon’s cloture vote (and filibuster, should that ensue).

Dodd noted that it wasn’t his colleagues in Congress – either house – who convinced him of the unacceptability of telecom immunity, it was the many citizens he met in his recently aborted campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination…

For several months now, I’ve listened to the building frustration over this immunity and this administration’s campaign of lawlessness. I’ve seen it in person, in mail, online – the passion and eloquence of citizens who are just fed up. They’ve inspired me more than they know.

In his impassioned speech, Dodd ran down the list of reasons why it’s important to stop this attempt to cover-up lawbreaking by the administration and its corporate enablers, and get the issues into the federal court system where they belong – and will be public. He echoes themes we’ve seen before…

Because this is about far more than the telecoms. This is about the choice that will define America: the rule of law, or the rule of men.

It’s about this government’s practice of waterboarding, a technique invented by the Spanish Inquisition, perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and in between, banned – originally banned for excessive cruelty – by the Gestapo!

It’s about the Military Commissions Act, a bill that gave President Bush the power to designate any individual he wants an “unlawful enemy combatant,” hold him indefinitely, and take away his right to habeas corpus – the 900-year-old right to challenge your detention.

It’s about the CIA destroying evidence of harsh interrogation – or, as some would call it, torture.

It’s about Dick Cheney raising secrecy to an art form.

[...] It’s about the Justice Department turning our nation’s highest law enforcement offices into patronage plums, and turning the impartial work of indictments and trials into the machinations of politics.

It’s about Alberto Gonzales coming before Congress to give us testimony that was a best wrong and at worst perjury.

It’s about Michael Mukasey coming before the Senate and defending the president’s power to openly break the law.

It’s about extraordinary renditions and secret prisons…

Whoa. Quite the list! I can remember when Richard Nixon resigned rather than try to defend his involvement in the cover-up of a “third-rate burglary.” Heck, I can remember when the only reason Ronald Reagan didn’t get impeached for giving high-powered weaponry to Iran and running drugs and death squads in Central America was because the lovable old Gipper was obviously suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

…and I can remember an 8-year torch and pitchfork battle to impeach the most popular president in my lifetime for getting a blow job. Shrub has so corrupted this government and slimed the office of the Presidency that it’s hard to imagine how America can recover. George Bush and his puppets in the Congress (including more than a handful of culpable Democrats) are trying hard to ensure that America never recovers. They want us destroyed – much more thoroughly than Osama bin Laden could ever hope for.

Just as the nefarious threads of Sibel Edmonds’ revelations span decades, name the already well-known players, and establish a long-term program of illegal nuclear proliferation involving high level officials in the Pentagon, State Department, Congress and the Bush administration, the many violations of US and international law related to illegal spying on citizens as well as blatant abrogation of the Constitution are all of a set. They are dots that tell a sordid tale if they can be connected.

You go, Senator Dodd! Connect those dots, filibuster those criminals and creeps, be a true patriot and help save this country from power-mad traitors! I’ve contacted my Senators about voting ‘No’ on FISA cloture. Have you contacted yours?

Links:

Statement of Senator Dodd on FISA Telecom Immunity

WaPo: Post Politics Hour

lukery: Sibel Edmonds archive

Related Ads:

Filed under Analysis, Bush, Corruption, History, Intelligence, Torture, Treason | Comments (2)