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Friday, May 26, 2006

Forgetting who they work for
Posted by Jill | 11:06 AM
George W. Bush isn't the only one in Washington who's forgotten that government officials are OUR employees, not the other way around.

When it was OUR privacy rights -- our right to talk on the phone without being wiretapped; our right to do internet research without being monitored, our right to read books without our motivations being questioned -- Congress had no problem curtailing those rights rather than face accusations about being "soft on terrorists."

But when it's THEIR rights being trampled upon, suddenly there was a great hue and cry.

USA Today, which is becoming less and less "McPaper" every day, notes:

Now we know what it takes to make Congress mad enough to stand up for constitutional rights.
When the government snoops on your phone calls and records without warrants, lawmakers barely kick up a fuss. But when the target is a fellow congressman — one under investigation for taking a bribe, no less — they're ready to rumble.

Witness the bipartisan frenzy set off after the FBI searched the Capitol Hill offices of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., on Saturday. The FBI had a court order. According to an FBI affidavit, he was videotaped taking $100,000 in cash from an investor working undercover for the FBI. Agents found $90,000 of it stuffed in his freezer at home, the affidavit said.

Never mind all that. Leaders of the House of Representatives are appalled. They say the search violated the Constitution's separation of powers, "designed to protect the Congress and the American people from abuse of power."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who rarely agree on anything, demanded that the Justice Department return the "unconstitutionally seized" documents. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the episode raised "profoundly disturbing" questions. He set a hearing for Tuesday to ask: "Did the Saturday night raid of Congress trample the Constitution?"

If only those leaders were as profoundly disturbed about executive branch incursions on the rights of average citizens. You certainly have to wonder where they've been for the past several years while the Bush administration ran roughshod over the legislative branch and launched anti-terror programs of questionable legality.
[snip]

So now the leadership swings into action because the FBI searched a Capitol Hill office for evidence of criminal activity?


If there's one thing more disgraceful than the performance of this president and the people around him for the last five years, it's that of the branch of government on Capitol Hill. From grandstanding on gay marriage, to the Schiavo fiasco, to the continued attempts to pass ANWR drilling, to the rampant corruption, it seem astounding that anyone would send ANY of these people back to Washington this November.
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