Arlen Specter’s New Science Project

If he proceeds with proposed legislation regarding judicial oversight of government domestic wiretapping, Sen. Arlen Specter, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will present a novel science project to the public. The question: Whether Congress should be classified as an invertebrate animal or one with a spine.

Many of the behavior characteristics of this Congress have certainly given strong indication that it is indeed invertebrate. It took a close decision of the Supreme Court, packed with justices beholden to the GOP, to declare what most sentient vertebrates have known for quite a while, that the President was violating the law and Geneva Convention in its treatment of detainees and proposed Military Commissions for Guantanamo detainees. The President has openly admitted to domestic surveillance without approval from the FISA Court. This program clearly violates the statute enacted by Congress to preclude the precise activity in which the President is engaged. The President has also admitted to collecting personal and business banking information on millions of Americans without obtaining any form of permission or oversight by the judiciary. He has also told Congress that he refuses to provide them specific information about what he has been doing because to reveal secrets would threaten “national security.”

The measure proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter would allow the President to seek review of his domestic wiretapping by the FISA court, IF the President wants to allow the review. The legislation would remove the mandatory oversight presently required by law under the 4th Amendment. It would effectively gut the FISA legislation and disembowel the FISA court. In addition, the bill Specter proposes would create a new offense for revealing secret information about government surveillance programs. In other words, if any person in the government came forward to challenge the legality of the President’s surveillance programs or activity, that person would not only lose whistleblower protection that exists under the law, but may be subjected to criminal prosecution. So the proposed bill would allow the President to do whatever he wants, whenever he chooses, without judicial or Congressional scrutiny, and with the threat of criminal prosecution for anyone who spills the beans about Presidential activity that may violate the law or the Constitution.

So, my fellow Americans, what do you think? Does this kind of legislation by a co-equal branch of government entrusted with enacting laws that protect the people and provide for protection of our Constitutional rights and liberties sound like the behavior of an animal with a spine? Or does it resemble a jellyfish that is incapable of standing or resisting pressure? There will be a Quiz on November 7, 2006.