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Democrats Propose Commission To Investigate Spying

Posted by kdawson on from the no-immunity-for-you dept.

metalman writes "Wired has a story on a proposal by House Democrats to 'establish a national commission — similar to the 9/11 Commission... to find out — and publish — what exactly the nation's spies were up to during their five-year warrantless, domestic surveillance program.' The draft bill would also preserve the requirement of court orders and remove 'retroactive immunity for telecom companies.' (We've discussed various government wiretaps, phone companies, and privacy violations before.) But it seems unlikely that such an alternative on phone immunity would pass both the House and Senate, let alone survive a Presidential veto."

7 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Speak really slowly for me... by FoolsGold · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How exactly is it that one man, the President, has the power to veto any bill that's passed by Congress? What happens when a bill comes along which could threaten him in some way? Didn't someone think about this before granting veto ability for the Prez?

    I don't live in the US so please forgive me if there's actually some method to this madness, but frankly, it's still madness.

    1. Re:Speak really slowly for me... by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You have a two party system because the system is built in a way to favor a two party system, smaller parties have huge barriers of entry and they cannot gain traction.

      Of course as ultimately a society is determined by the people composing it, the responsibility belongs to the people for the state of matters, but the current sitation is different than just living in a two party system and most people accepting it.

      Consider voter turnout, it is considered very low, even for a (sort-of) democratic country. People would vote for other parties, but those parties never get the chance to gain traction due to the built-in favorism in the system towards major power blocks. Ultimately, this is going to be an uphill battle for you guys, you need to change the way your system works and probably the most success you'd have is by going on a roundabout way on this matter: start from education, from history: do not worship your founding fathers because they established this system (even if it was considered enlightened in their age), teach critical thinking, disrespect for authority, establish independent information channels, inform, inform, inform. Tell people about things they don't want to hear: individual social responsibility, collective action for the individual (but overally positive-sum) good, etc.

      --
      It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
      Be yourself no matter what they say
    2. Re:Speak really slowly for me... by Z34107 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Checks and balances is a poor justification on this level, because the executive should not be overwriting the legislative in my opinion. I believe a nice compromise would be if the president could send the bill to the supreme court for a constitutionality check and suspend signing the bill into law until the court decides.

      The courts are not supposed to be legistlating. Never, ever, ever! That's why we have the legislative branch.

      The "constitutionality check" still happens - it's called judicial review, but the way it happens, it keeps judges somewhat removed from the political process. Which is a good thing; I at least like the illusion that politics shouldn't play a role in justice.

      I think that a stronger Congress and a weaker president is better, because it makes things less radical and responsibility is divided more evenly. It would also make people able to vote for representatives locally who could eventually influence things, but while the president is too powerful change is not possible if you have to gain the presidential seat to actually do anything, given the state of media and related issues.

      Problem is that a direct democracy is a synonym for mob rule. They didn't want a skilled sophist or propaganda mill to convince the 51% to vote to kill the 49%. The idea was to separate the government from the people, yet still have the government accountable to them.

      Originally, we elected the House of Representatives, and the House elected the Senate. (IIRC, this is how the Japanese government works.) The House was designed to be responsive to the needs of the people, the senate more deliberate and long-sighted, and the courts even more long sighted.

      I look around me, and most of the people I see are idiots. Granted, I am arrogant and elitest - but the prolefeed I see when I watch television scares me. Celebrities? Al Gore? (But I repeat myself.) Crime is given more airtime than ever before - it's shocking and will get viewers and ratings, but without being controversial.

      The idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H human beings and individuals at my college who will vote for Obama because "He'll give more money to teachers and I'm an education major" or the editorials in my local newspaper agonizing over the problem of choosing between black man or a white woman for president. Because, of course, superficial things like race and gender should matter in an election more than what they'll do with the office.

      American Idol had better turnout than some primaries. The population as a whole has screwed up priorities, and I want those less represented in my government, thank you very much.

      --
      DATABASE WOW WOW
  2. How much spying was political? by theonetruekeebler · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm reading about the Eliot Spitzer case, which all started with surveillance wiretap ordered by the justice department. Asking a prostitute to cross a state line is a federal crime, see.

    Not being from New York I didn't know much about the man, so I checked, and it turns out he's a Democrat. So ever since yesterday I've been wondering if this was an attempt to bring down the Democratic Governor of a key state, like they did in Alabama. I'll be curious to see how much media complacency there is in the New York case.

    --
    This is not my sandwich.
  3. Don't destroy our freedom, encourage theirs by cryfreedomlove · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The administration's instinct to strip away our freedoms in the name of desperate fear is misguided. Rather, we should be supportive of people in the middle east who are growing weary of being ruled by fundamentalist Islam. Fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Christian, or otherwise is fine for those folks who self select into it but it is tyranny when it gains the backing of coercive power.

    This article is about one Sheikh in Saudi Arabia who is tired of being bullied by fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia. The US should invest 1.0% of its current Iraq war budget in people like him rather than creating converts to funadmentalist Islam with our war in Iraq. Nurture a moderate alternative and fundamentalism will remain small.

  4. Re:Dems grandstanding so far by Notquitecajun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's the problem. This congress was put into office to deal with two things - spending and immigration - NOT corruption. All it appears they've been doing is trying to "deal with corruption" and the populace has gotten more and more disgusted.

  5. Re:Useless.... by moeinvt · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Yes, the 9-11 Commission was actually very informative and thorough . . ."

    I'd hardly use those adjectives to describe it, considering the fact that they "forgot" all about the 47-story skyscraper (WTC7) that collapsed on the day of the attacks WITHOUT being hit by an aircraft . . . among other things.

    http://911research.wtc7.net/post911/commission/report.html

    Why am I NOT encouraged by the government investigating itself about domestic spying?