Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Less Evil than Macaca Man? Jim Webb Surrenders Our Freedom

Don’t act surprised. Democrats love our society’s culture of control as much as any other political thug in Washington. They took control of both houses in Congress in 2006, but that hasn’t stopped the U.S. government’s move toward expanding its totalitarian control over all aspects of society.

Former Repubican Jim Webb won election to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Virginia in 2006, defeating Republican George Allen who was videotaped a couple months prior to the election referring to a Webb campaign volunteer as “macaca.”

Democrats were high-fiving because Webb’s victory helped them to retake control of the Senate. The change in power mattered to the bullies who crave to become committee chairs. But the 2006 victory has not resulted in a rollback in the U.S. government’s move toward absolute control.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate approved a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Webb and 16 other Democrats joined all but one Republican—South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham, who did not vote—to pass the bill.

“The Senate overwhelming voted Tuesday evening to legalize President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and grant amnesty to the phone companies that helped out with the domestic spying,” Ryan Singel writes.

Singel continues:

The bill, which expires in six years, allows the government to install permanent wiretapping outposts in telephone and internet facilities inside the United States without a warrant. However, if those wiretaps are used to target Americans inside or outside of the country, the government would have to get a court order. However, if the target is a foreigner or a foreign corporation, and they call an American or an American calls them, no warrant is required.

Prior to this summer, the intelligence community was forbidden by law from wiretapping phone and internet switches inside the United States, unless they had a particular target in mind and applied for a court order from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court largely rubber stamps such applications—it approved 2,072 in 2005 and required modifications to only 61 of those.

Here are the Democrats who voted for the bill:

Evan Bayh (D-IN), Tom Carper (D-DE), Robert Casey (D-PA), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Jim Webb (D-VA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

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