Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law

Source: NY Times

At a closed-door briefing in mid-July, senior intelligence officials startled lawmakers with some troubling news. American eavesdroppers were collecting just 25 percent of the foreign-based communications they had been receiving a few months earlier.

Congress needed to act quickly, intelligence officials said, to repair a dangerous situation.

Some lawmakers were alarmed. Others, jaded by past intelligence warnings, were skeptical.

The report helped set off a furious legislative rush last week that, improbably, broadened the administration’s authority to wiretap terrorism suspects without court oversight.

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The White House, Mr. Feingold said Friday in an interview, “has identified the one major remaining weakness in the Democratic Party, and that’s its unwillingness to stand up to the administration when it’s making a power grab regarding terrorism and national security.”



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/washington/11nsa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Dems who voted for this got rolled again by Bush, Cheney and Rove! Fools!

just shameful

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

How many times do the Dems have to be fooled,
before they notice?

the other 75% was aimed at Americans. There is still no reason that there can't be oversight.

A veto-proof majority after 08 effectively decapitates the Christianist & the Corporatist agenda. Veto-proof majority means new laws.

and that, having done so, they'll actually want to do the right thing.

I'm not sure either one is a given.

Never forget that in Bush/Rove world everything is run through the political arm. How many GOP attack ads have you seen that paint Dems as underfunding weapons or ignoring terrorist threats. The voting populace is underinformed. We forget that at our peril.

Watch Bush as if you are evaluating a marketing campaign. They are branding and maneuvering.

Sad to say, but I don't know who's on our side anymore.