The government now has even more power to spy without a court order. In my July 25th post, I referred to the book, Presidential Secrecy and the Law, which talks about how inadequate FISA is to safeguard our civil liberties. Now, instead of strengthening our civil liberties, Democrats have gone along with the Republicans to weaken them even further.I really don't understand the motivation. Are the Dems afraid that they'll be called "weak"? They will anyway, even if they voted for it. But now all the Democratic constituents (like me) think they're weak for not standing up to King George. I really can't even tell that the Democrats are the majority party since they keep passing King George's bills.
I can't find the Senate roll call vote (it isn't posted yet for some reason), so I don't know how Brownback and Roberts voted (I'm sure they were for it, but Brownback hasn't actually been casting many votes this year). In the House, the Kansas votes went along party lines. Moran & Tiahrt voted YEA; Boyda and Moore voted NAY.
Some unusual "YEA" votes: McCaskill of MO and Jim Webb of VA in the Senate voted YEA.
It boggles my mind that we're willing to trust this government to protect our civil liberties when they demonstrate over-and-over again that they will not. I'm thinking specifically of those FBI & CIA reports that revealed that those agencies aren't even following what little laws they think they ought to.
Some good words from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee:
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