Battered Legislation Syndrome
Our federal legislation reminds me an awful lot of a battered wife. Battered wives make all sorts of excuses for their abusive husbands, and do everything they can to enable them to continue abusing them. The Senate has just done this for our Glorious Leader in passing his amendments to FISA. No surprise, the administration is calling for the House to do the same. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, FISA stands for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, a law designed to protect Americans from government surveillance without a warrant. The law created special courts where the law enforcement agencies could seek those warrants in secret so the targets wouldn't be able to find out they were being targeted. FISA even allows for law enforcement to seek those warrants seventy-two hours after surveillance has begun. It sounds fairly comprehensive and straightforward, right? Well, that's why the news that the NSA has been wiretapping American c...