George W. Bush

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Another neat nugget from Public Citizen: A consumer's translation of the Bush's Speech.

After seven years of State of the Union addresses from the Bush administration, the American public has learned that President Bush’s policy recommendations are often based on misinformation. As such, Public Citizen has prepared the following guide to the 2007 speech so consumers can get complete and accurate information about the issues.

Maybe, just maybe, people should be free from surveillance if they're not doing anything wrong?

Read about it here.

The question is, what will happen now that it's being monitored by the court that should have been monitoring it in the first place? Why is Bush allowing this? It can only be because he thinks they won't do anything about it.

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The Center For Democracy and Technology recently said in their newsletter:

The "lame duck" 109th Congress will return to Washington November 13 to take care of unfinished business before it finally ends. Among the bills President Bush has said he'd like to see passed is the NSA Domestic Spying bill. In addition, there is an effort afoot to slip into some other bill (probably a spending bill) a provision that would give the telecom companies immunity from liability for any unlawful assistance they have given to the government since 9/11.

What they're talking about is the bill that was introduced to congress backed by Bush that would not only NOT challenge the spying, but would in some forms legalize and expand the power to spy on Americans without a warrant. Fortunately, many major news outlets think that's not likely including the Baltimore Sun:

Republicans for months have known that no bill accomplishing Bush's goal could get filibuster-proof support from 60 senators. Sealing off any hope was what Democratic leader Harry Reid put on his lame-duck to-do list. The warrantless domestic surveillance bill was conspicuous in its absence.