Democrats team up with the White House to gut the Fourth Amendment

June 23rd, 2008 | Action Alert, Constitutional Crisis

By: D. H. Williams @ 10:42 AM - EST

“This FISA bill is an evisceration of the Fourth Amendment” - Jonathan Turley

Democrats campaigned on civil liberties while they already knew about torture camps and widespread warrantless spying on Americans.

House Democrats decide to appease President Bush’s illegal spying activities giving immunity to phone companies who have already committed federal crimes. Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley sees a “very frightening bill” in a proposed “compromise,” currently in the House, that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to effectively grant immunity from civil law suits to telecommunications companies that agreed to spy on their customers as part of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, starting shortly before the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. The bill basically says if The White House asks a phone company to spy it is legal and that is enough to dismiss a case.

Turley says this bill is not only immunizing the telecommunications companies, but the administration and any members of Congress, on either side of the aisle, that may have been involved in crimes.

“The Democrats never really were engaged in [fighting] this,” said Turley. “In fact, they repeatedly tried to cave in to the White House, only to be stopped by civil libertarians and bloggers.”

“I think they’re simply waiting to see if the public’s interest will wane,” he went on, referring to repeated attempts to float this legislation past the public. “This bill has quite literally no public value for citizens or civil liberties. It is reverse engineering, though the type the Bush Administration’s famous for, and now the Democrats are doing — that is, to change the law to conform to past conduct.”

“It’s what any criminal would love to do,: Turley continued. “You rob a bank, go to the legislature, and change the law to say that robbing banks is lawful.”

Time to stop this bill again call your representaives in Congress today. Why not leave a comment and tell us how the call went….

You can enter your zip code in the “contact congress” widget at the top left hand column on this site to locate your state and federal representatives.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrKPYYpW_Pc[/youtube]

Senator Harry Reid double talks his way through questions about FISA. My Opinion: He’s going to be for gutting The Fourth Amendment to protect himself and other criminals in Congress.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0G6D7ugIyc[/youtube]

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