This is what they're calling "Oversight" nowadays
posted by
Wally
1:59 PM
Under the new expanded warrantless wiretapping program, Alberto Gonzales and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell will be responsible for writing up the procedures and determining who's phone calls and emails they're going to listen to and read. Does that make you feel more secure and safe from terrorists? Yeah, me neither.
But wait, it gets better.
Guess who's in charge of oversight to make sure that they comply with the very limited restrictions - making sure that they don't overstep their legal bounds and violate your Constitutional rights. Surprise! It's Alberto Gonzales and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell!
That's right, the same guys who have been consistently and blatantly violating those very Constitutional rights when it was still illegal are now going to be monitoring themselves to make sure they don't continue to do so now that Congress has made it legal.The law, signed Sunday by President Bush after being pushed through the Senate and House over the weekend, does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice Department's inspector general.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, officials familiar with the program said they had not worked out all the details of internal oversight, noting that the law was only a day old. But the officials, who spoke to reporters on the condition that they not be identified, said surveillance activities would require a sworn certificate and affidavit, which would be reviewed for accuracy by inspectors general from the Justice Department or intelligence agencies.
It is left to the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to "assess compliance with such procedures" and report their assessments to the House and Senate intelligence panels, the statute states.
Gonzalez is also required to provide semiannual reports to the House and Senate intelligence and Judiciary committees, which are to include any accounts of abuse or noncompliance that Justice and intelligence officials discover in their internal reviews. Please. I can only imagine his semiannual reports. "I can't recall any instances where I violated this particular statute. Talk to you in 6 months."
Next time I get pulled over, I wonder what the cop would do if I told him that the head of DOJ says it's okay to monitor himself, so just give me your badge number and I'll send a report in 6 months telling you all the times I drove over the speed limit or didn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign. Then I'll tell my boss that I'm going to monitor and assess my compliance with regular work hours, and give a semi-annual report on how many times I was late, and assess my productivity and decide my own raise.
I'll let you know how that works out for me. Meantime, I'll be accepting donations for bail money to get my butt out of jail, since unlike the criminals in high office in this country, as a simple law abiding working class regular guy, I'll have the benefit of neither "executive privilege" nor gainful employment.
Letting the fox guard the henhouse
Permalink
::
2 comments
::
|
