President Bush is pushing Congress to authorize a new law that would, according to him, modernize how law governs the way intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists. However, Senator Feingold calls the measure an “egregious power grab” that would give the administration more authority. In Bush’s weekly radio address on July 28, 2007 he stated that the current law is “badly out of date.” Currently, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists’ communications to be collected without violating civil liberties. Bush wants to expand the law to take into account that terrorists are now using disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives, and plan attacks, but Democrats want to ensure that changes to the current law do not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers.

Bush believes that since these same tools were not available 30 years ago when FISA passed that these additional methods of communication need to be incorporated into the new law. His proposal included the fact that recently released information has concluded that al-Qaida is using its growing strength in the Middle East to plot attacks on U.S. soil. I don’t know about you but it seems to me that this could easily be setting up for a wag the dog scenario where an attack is allowed in order to frighten the U.S. populace in going along with his plans to garner as much power as possible.

This prospect is possible since ruling by creating fear in the hearts of people has been a political tactic since the Crusades and on Saturday Bush was quick to point out that “Our intelligence community” (the same one that told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction) “is warning that under the current statute we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country.” However, Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin said that Bush was trying to exploit the threat from al-Qaida to push the bill. He concluded that “Bush is making an egregious power grab that includes broad new powers that have nothing to do with bringing FISA up to date.”

The original FISA law was made a statute in 1978 and set up a court that meets in secret to review applications from the FBI, the National Security Agency, and other agencies for warrants to wiretap or search the homes of people in the United States in terrorist or espionage cases. Bush has already overstepped the limits of this law when, after the Sept. 11 attacks, he authorized the NSA to spy on calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad without FISA court warrants. At the time his reasoning was that the administration needed the authority to act more quickly than the court could. It also included a statement that said the president had inherent authority under the Constitution to order warrant-less domestic spying. I would say that this is setting the American people up to be ruled by a dictator, which was first demonstrated shortly after 9/11 when Bush wanted to make it possible for him to extend his presidency past his limit of 8 years.

Fortunately, the American people were alert enough that the public challenged it in court and Bush was forced to put his warrant-less spying law back under FISA court supervision. It comes down to how many of our rights we are willing to forfeit in order to be safe. Are we being told only what the administration wants us to hear so that they can manipulate us into forgetting what our forefathers intended for this republic? Before allowing Bush to take any more rights from us, consider how easily we could be controlled if the right to bear weapons, the right to meet to groups, and other basic freedoms were to be denied to us. Careful scrutiny of all actions taken by the current administration should be observed since it has already shown us how dangerous it can be. Remember also that Bush belonged to a secret, worldwide organization known as the Skull and Bones that he not willing to talk about. This secret organization is known to control the world’s power brokers who work together to control world events. This is quite a scary concept if you take the time to consider all of its ramifications.

Tags: skulls and bones, bush administration, monitoring laws, terrorist, wag the dog, fear, fisa, federal intelligence surveillance act, national security agency, russ feingold, dictatorship, power grab, wiretapping, wiretaps