Travis Seitler: Web Designer

So what Very Important Issues did my Representative weigh in on yesterday?

• House Resolution 924: Congratulating Iowa State University of Science and Technology for 150 years of leadership and service to the United States and the world as Iowa’s land-grant university. [full text]
• House Resolution 948: Congratulating the University of Kansas (“KU”) football team for winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl and having the most successful year in program history. [full text]
• House Resolution 493: Congratulating the women’s water polo team of the University of California, Los Angeles, for winning the 2007 NCAA Division I Women’s Water Polo National Championship, and congratulating UCLA on its 100th NCAA sports national title, making it the most accomplished athletic program in NCAA history. [full text]

Yep, yep… there’s lots of tough choices to make when you’re a U.S. Representative. And I’m sure my fellow 16th Districters can join me in saying, “thank you, Rep. Pitts, for congratulating those Universities and their sports teams! That is precisely why we elected you, sir. Keep up the good work.”

Oh, and then there was this silly little matter of the President vetoing HR 2082 (the House of Representatives’ ‘08 Intelligence Authorization Act). There was a House vote to override the veto, and Rep. Pitts voted “nay.” (Yawn.) Let’s get back to important stuff, like sports… okay?

By the way: you may be wondering, “why did the President veto this bill anyway? I thought our ‘War on Terror’ was crippled until this Act was approved!” Well, it seems there is a Very Important Reason. Now, his veto message includes a few reasons, but the primary one seems to be this: “…the bill would harm our national security by requiring any element of the Intelligence Community to use only the interrogation methods authorized in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. It is vitally important that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) be allowed to maintain a separate and classified interrogation program.”

So the President doesn’t really care about you and your family’s risk from potential terrorist plots; his only concern is to be able to conduct “interrogations” (read:torture) outside of any legal restrictions or oversight.

This is so annoyingly inane that I just can’t believe it’s true:

“A suit alleging that the Bush administration is engaged in ongoing, widespread violations of our criminal laws must be dismissed because the alleged wrongdoer, the Bush administration, asserts that any adjudication of the issue would be counterproductive. In other words, under the administration’s legal theory, the administration gets to determine unilaterally which of its actions will be subject to judicial review.

“And while it assures us that the program is perfectly legal, the administration claims it cannot even divulge whether the named plaintiffs (Christopher Hitchens, Larry Diamond, etc.) were spied upon without harming national security. As Jack Balkin put it:

“If the issue were not so grave, the government’s arguments would simply be farcical. If the federal judiciary accepts the government’s argument to dismiss the case without requiring the government to make somewhat finer grained distinctions about what it can and cannot disclose, it might as well close up shop….”

From Unclaimed Territory: Orwellian Doublespeak by Glenn Greenwald.

You know what? If the U.S. was just a giant corporation—and all these “laws” just internal policies—then I could totally understand this response. But we’re talking about the Law here! You know, Lex Rex and all that? The President is not the ruler of this nation; the Law is. Bush must submit to the Law; not vice-versa.

Surely… hopefully… there’s someone in his cabinet who knows how stupid this all is?

I say from here on out, corporate CEOs should be barred from running for President. They’re just too power-hungry.

Keep in mind the warrantless wiretaps have been going on since, oh, 2002?

Bush: “Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order…“

(HT: Glenn Greenwald.)

The Administration’s humiliation of Congress

Since the NSA scandal began, one of the most bizarre aspects of the story is that the Administration has been claiming that Congress authorized it to eavesdrop in violation of FISA, but the Congress which is said to have done so had no idea that the Administration was engaged in warrantless eavesdropping and had no idea that it had authorized eavesdropping in violation of FISA. Beyond that fact, the actions of the Congress throughout 2002 make undeniably clear that Congress was not only completely unaware that the Administration was eavesdropping outside of FISA, but also that Congress was deliberately misled by the Administration into believing that FISA continued to govern the Administration’s eavesdropping activities.

I highly recommend bookmarking Glenn’s blog. He’s putting the pieces together…

Just look at all the attention this whole Bush/NSA/FISA fiasco is getting!

Good. There’s a reason the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was put there, and it wasn’t for a President to just ignore whenever he felt like it.

And no, the ends don’t justify the means. This nation is supposed to be one which follows the Lex Rex principle: “The Law is King.” George W. Bush is a servant of the citizens of the United States (not vice-versa), and he is only allowed to serve in the manner defined in the Constitution. Said Constitution clearly states,

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Any president who violates his oath to uphold the Constitution (of which the Fourth Amendment is a part) ought to be removed from office. Period.