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Bill Moyers: Cheney Has Been Fighting to Spy On You For Over 30 Years [VIDEO]

Posted by Nicole Belle at 12:30 PM on October 29, 2007.


Moyers looks at the undoing of Congress' checks and balances put in place following the Church Committee hearings and the unprecedented expansion of Executive authority in the wake of 9/11.
Moyers On Why FISA Is Neccesary

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This post, written by Nicole Belle, originally appeared on Crooks and Liars

BILL MOYERS: Remember "The Lives of Others" - the movie that won this year's Academy Award for best foreign language film....a story of life under East Germany's secret police. The critic Roger Ebert said: "The movie is relevant today, as our government ignores habeas corpus, practices secret torture, and asks for the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on its citizens. Such tactics, he said, did not save East Germany; they destroyed it, by making it a country its most loyal citizens could no longer believe in." You want to say it couldn't happen here but we've been close before. During the cold war with the Soviet Union and then the hot war in Vietnam, a secret government mushroomed in this country. ...(transcript)

In 1975 the Select Senate Committee headed by Sen Frank Church (D-ID) began looking into allegations first reported by Seymour Hersh in the NYT and found that the CIA, NSA, FBI and other federal agencies had been involved in everything from plots to assassinate foreign leaders, illegal storage of poisons and biological warfare agents including anthrax, warrantless opening of mail and wiretapping and other intel-gathering on US citizens, and misuse of the IRS , just to name a few of the abuses by the Executive Branch they discovered.

One of the ways Congress responded to try and restore checks and balances was by passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which established a secret court to oversee all domestic wiretapping activity. Bill Moyers looks at the undoing of Congress' checks and balances put in place following the Church Committee hearings and the unprecedented expansion of Executive authority in the wake of 9/11. You can watch the entire episode online here.


The GOP, McCain Fall Flat Online
So, instead of mocking them, perhaps I should be worried about their growing online activist army. Just kidding.
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Post by Digby. August 7, 2008.

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pfft! you may already be labeled a terrorist threat to the US gubberment
Posted by: KaptainSpiffy on Oct 29, 2007 12:42 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955

putting food on your fambily for 7 years! make the pie higher!

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» Can you help me understand this bill? Posted by: Susan Kipping
» the thrust of the bill: Posted by: KaptainSpiffy
If Cheney's own personal fortune hadn't increased twenty-fold in that time he might have an argument
Posted by: xbj on Oct 30, 2007 5:27 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
But since he wasn't and isn't ethical enough to insure he never profited from any of his machinations, everything he does is suspect, and obviously purely for profit.

Which is why he tells people when they call him on it to "Go fuck yourself."

He just doesn't give a damn, because it's for the money, and it's always ALL been JUST for the money and nothing else, and he sees absolutely nothing wrong with that.

It's a sickness, one that would almost deserve pity, except for the gallons of innocent blood spilled and lives lost to make this monster a multi-millionaire.

It's bastards like these that make capitalism abhorrent and very much at the forseeable end of its lifespan.

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And What Are We Defending?
Posted by: laurel.jensen on Oct 30, 2007 6:40 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Seems almost impossible that the right continuously elicits 'defending freedom' as a rationale for U.S. wars overseas when in reality, the freedom we are supposed to be defending has been eroded beyond recognition in this country.

'Freedom' is a political term and it's meaning is clearly outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, and so on.

This Administration, Dick Cheney probably the worst of them, has redefined the word to mean 'freedom of the Executive Branch to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whomever it wants'. In all other contexts, that's called dictatorship, completely eliminating any resemblance to democracy and freedom.

Let's turn this around! We, as citizens of a 'free country' have an obligation to bring our democracy back! An obligation ...

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Constitutional crisis
Posted by: profmarcus on Oct 30, 2007 7:39 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the constitutional crisis is arguably the most critical issue to ever face the united states... it has been under continuous assault for many years, going back to richard nixon, but the continuous barrage since the scotus decision of 12 december 2000 is both unprecedented and extremely dangerous...

the latest mind-boggler, H.R. 1955: "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism" [PDF], introduced by a democrat, no less (jane harman), is just the latest in a truly horrifying parade of legislation and executive orders designed to completely nullify the nation's founding document and the bill of rights... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to draw the connections between H.R. 1955 and the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act, Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives NSPD-51 and HSPD-20, and, of course, the quickly disappearing story du jour, the heinous FISA bill with its provision for granting telecom immunity...

the very foundations of our democratic republic are under attack on a daily basis... when are we going to wake up and smell the coffee...?

And, yes, I DO take it personally

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I COULD GO TO PRISON FOR THIS LETTER
Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN on Oct 30, 2007 10:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Congresswoman Pelosi,
I was born in the United States.
Chicago to be exact.
I live in north central WI and am in Sen Feingold's district as well as Dave Obey's.
I see Dave from time to time in the store in town and, we always exchange friendly greetings.
He is a nice guy and his wife is a very nice woman.
I have never met Sen Feingold.

I am an independent politically.
I am a small business owner and a home owner.
I am also a voter who truly cares about MY AMERICA.
I'm an old Navy guy as well.
That is ONE of the reasons why the chickenhawks of the tighty righty side disgust me.
Cheney & his little puppet, georgie, sure do love to bang the wardrums.
Unfortunately for courage, legitimacy and decency, banging those drums does NOT carry over into exposing their sons & daughter to the dangers of the ones who are used as cannon fodder.

There is a majority in America.
That majority is the people WHO WANT THIS INVENTED WAR STOPPED NOW!!
So many of us realize that, in truth, we are powerless to do anything about it.
Why?
Because we DO KNOW that ALL OF YOU IN CONGRESS ARE IN IT TOGETHER FOR THE SAME DESPICABLE REASONS.
Those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with the REAL AMERICAN PEOPLE.

YOU, Congwoman Pelosi, removed our last constitutional protection from the likes of the evilness of the cheney/bush regime when you played cloakroom politics and took "impeachment' off the table.

Ms Pelosi, I am neither a babe in arms or a senile old fart.
I am a 68 y/o businessman with all of my faculties.
As you might ascertain, if you actually take the time to read this missive yourself, I am also intelligent.
I am only one of those REAL AMERICANS who is at the end of the rope of patience and disgust with our government and those who are in power.

I know you are aware of the incredibly low esteem in which so many of us hold all of you in congress.
You could not possibly get to where you are without some level of intelligence.
Well, maybe if you were a republican;)

I have no way of knowing just how many emails you get from others' constituents however, even though you are a CA D, you are a part of the government of MY country.

Congwoman Pelosi, I need to tell you how angry and broken hearted I am over what you people are doing to what was the wondrerful country of AMERICA.
I work hard to do everything I can FOR my community.
That is part of being a good citizen and a good American.
I do not TAKE from my community and not give something in return.
In fact, I have given much more than I have taken by doing many thing gratis for people who truly cannot afford my services. I own an appliance repair business.

I imagine you have already been bored at paragraph 3 or 4 and wondered who this is who thinks he is important enough for me to have any legitimate interest in what he wants.

Well, Congwoman Pelosi, it is very simple.
As an AMERICAN citizen, I demand and expect you to act upon and uphold that oath of office you took as both a congressperson and as Speaker of the House.
It is clear that you have violated that oath as, you and I both know that you have not done what you promised us to get elected.

It is incumbent upon you to be AN AMERICAN CITIZEN FIRST and, secondly to uphold that oath of office.

I challenge you, as an AMERICAN to put IMPEACHMENT back on the table where it belongs under the constitution.
By taking it "off the (cloakroom) table", you have done to the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION exactly what your friend in the white has done, truned YOUR back upon us and stabbed us in OURS.

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» RE: I COULD GO TO PRISON FOR THIS LETTER Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN
thekidde
Posted by: thekidde on Oct 30, 2007 1:09 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How many times must it be said? It is rapidly approaching the time for pitchforks and torches in America. After 8 years of Bush II, 4 years of Bush I and 8 years of Rotten Ronnie Reagan, that's what it will take to get our country back. The Bastille in our case is multiple: the gated communities of the pillaging rich, the ivory towers of Wall Street hedge fund assholes, the corporate boardrooms of the executive rapist class. It is time that the tree of liberty was watered not with the blood of our sons and daughters in Iraq, but with the blood of the savages that brought us here: the neo-cons, the sons of privilege who have no ethics, the religious wingnuts of every denomination who would have their myths drive science away from achievement and youth away from knowledge (in the quest for "fame"), the misogenysts who would forever have women hold a Christian/Muslim/ Judaic role of second (hell, third) class citizenry, the greedy and ignorant (in corporations and governments) who exploit foreign slaves for profit - these are they who must pay - soon.

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» Chelsea works for a hedge fund Posted by: Prairie Waif
» RE: thekidde Posted by: LouisLouis
thekidde
Posted by: thekidde on Oct 30, 2007 1:13 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Oh, and just because I'd like to throttle Bush, doesn't make me a terrorist. Maybe I'm just pissed that he spent 1968 dicking around in the South getting drunk and high while I was in sunny, SE Asia getting fucked by my draftboard.

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Decency in barbaric times
Posted by: monish chatterjee on Oct 30, 2007 1:26 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Every decent voice in this country, and worldwide, has spoken out, in grief, in consternation, with empathy, and with outrage, in response to the horrendous crimes of this criminal gang and its filthy rich minions in the WH and in Congress. All to no avail. Honorable human beings such as Bishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Harry Belafonte, Studs Terkel, Garrison Keillor- not one, NOT ONE of them is spared the shoddy and occasionally humiliating treatment at the hands of this mass-murdering, soulless gang of killers and profiteers.

The brutality, ignorance, arrogance, absence of the minimal standard of decency and humanity in this power-intoxicated and sick band of war criminals- these are staggering and mind-boggling. And their reach has steadily extended into halls of learning, education, and every instrument of social justice, creativity, and free-thought.

I DO NOT HAVE THE SLIGHTEST TRUST OR RESPECT FOR THE DEMOCRATS- their willing participation in these crimes is heartbreaking. The various recent actions and words of Pelosi, Clinton (both), and all the others, are disgustingly self-serving, unprincipled, and unimaginably hateful. Beginning with the criminal debacle of 2000, the Democrats have amply proven Ralph Nader right. The Ds and the Rs are simply two sides of a deadly coin of exploitation and control.

NOTHING SHORT OF A COMPLETE PURGE WILL WORK IN SUCH A DISMAL TIME. How this will ever be made a reality- I wish I knew the formula. If by some miracle, this country could elect Dennis Kucinich (perhaps as someone other than a Democrat, perhaps in league with a Nader, a Gore, or another impassioned soul sidelined in this age of mental midgets), perhaps civilization would get back on track. Realistically, it all looks so bleak and hopeless. Yet, such massive heartbreak of billions of decent human beings worldwide must find an answer and restitution, somewhere, somehow.

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» RE: Decency in barbaric times Posted by: phatkhat