connecting*the*dots

Bloomberg.com
Senate Panel Rejects Proposal to Probe Eavesdropping

March 7 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee rejected a proposal to investigate the Bush administration’s program of conducting electronic eavesdropping without warrants, while agreeing to create new congressional panels to increase oversight.

Lawmakers from both parties have been pressing for more information on the wiretapping without court orders since it was disclosed by the New York Times in December.

Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the panel, proposed the probe of the Bush administration’s wiretapping of communications between the U.S. and other countries without court approval. President George W. Bush has said he authorized the eavesdropping of communications linked to terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“This committee is basically under control of the White House,” Rockefeller told reporters after the two-hour meeting today in Washington. “It’s an unprecedented bout of political pressure from the White House.”

Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said any inquiry would be detrimental to national security.

“We should fight the enemy, not fight each other,” Roberts, a Kansas Republican said. “The program is extremely important.”

After negotiations with the Bush administration, the panel voted to create a new subcommittee whose seven members, out of the committee’s 15 total lawmakers, would receive full briefings on the program. Those briefings had been limited to just Rockefeller and Roberts.

“What we need is oversight,” Republican Mike DeWine of Ohio, one of the new subcommittee members said. “What we need is to get into this program.”

I hate to break the news to Pat Roberts, but if Congressional inquiries become the equivalent of shit shooting through a duck, in the end, we the people are straight up fucked.

For those of you out there that think that checks and balances are still in order, well, it’s time to wake up. There’s apparently no such thing as a moderate Republican, or to use another phrase, one that gives a shit about our Constitutional rights.