Man it sure is good to hear real congress critters speak up!
From an op-ed in the Boston Globe via Truthout.org:
The president is not above the law; he is not King George. Yet, with sorrow, we are now learning that in this great land we have an administration that has refused to follow well-crafted, longstanding procedures that require the president to get a court order before spying on people within the United States. With outrage, we learn that this administration believes that it does not have to follow the law of the land.
More of the good senator's words after the fold...
...and please read the entire op-ed as these are only small excerpts...So he starts off with our favorite King George...what else does he have in store?
The president, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the attorney general tell us that the president can order domestic spying inside this country - without judicial oversight - under his power as commander in chief. Really? Where do they find that in the Constitution?
Nope...no authority on that page...maybe on the back? Oh, no it's in invisible ink that can only be seen through one of Mr Cheney's decoder rings. Yeah, that must be it!
But ya know Mr. Kennedy, we know more about FISA than you do...
This is not a new debate. Years ago, with bipartisan support, I spearheaded the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which specifically requires the attorney general to obtain prior authorization from a judge, in a secret expedited proceeding, before engaging in domestic spying or wiretapping. Now, the president says that that law is "insufficient" and "outdated" to meet the current threats in the war on terror because it was passed nearly 30 years ago. The Constitution took effect in 1789 - and it is still good law today.
Hmmm...well Mr. Kennedy, we were planning on telling you later, but since you are so old as well...ever see Logan's Run? We'll get back to you on that.
But Mr. Kennedy, do you have more to say? Maybe some other event that really un-nerves you?
Just this past week there were public reports that a college student in Massachusetts had two government agents show up at his house because he had gone to the library and asked for the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto. Following his professor's instructions to use original source material, this young man discovered that he, too, was on the government's watch list.
Welcome to the latest version of King George's America.
Will Senator Kennedy and his fellow Dems find a way to stop King George? Will the American people stand up for their country? Will we see Republicans toss out the Rove flavored Kool Aid? Will Logan's Run ever be re-made? These stories and much more await us in 2006....
Lets make '06 the year that all Republicans remember as the year the Dems struck back!