Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Submitted by Abijah Adams on Sat, 02/09/2008 - 00:43.
In Plato's Republic, the question is put to Socrates, "Who will watch the watchers?" or, "Who will protect us against the protectors?"
Today there were more Senate votes seeking an answer to that ancient question. Here are a few notables:
- (Dem) Russ Feingold's S 3913: Prohibits the government from getting around FISA's court order requirement by wiretapping an individual overseas when it is really only listening in on a person in the U.S. with whom that "supposed foreign target" is communicating.
Aim: Watches the watchers. Failed: 38-57.
(Democrats voting nay - Inouye, Pryor and Salazar [Lieberman]) - (D) Feingold's S 3915: gives the FISA Court discretion to impose restrictions on the use of information about Americans that is acquired through procedures later determined to be illegal by the FISA court.
Aim: Watches the watchers. Failed: 40-56
(Democrats voting nay - Rockefeller, Johnson, Bayh, Inouye, Pryor and Landrieu [Lieberman]) - (R) Kit Bond's S 3941: Extends from 30 to 90 days the window of time that wiretaps can continue without any ruling from FISA court before the telecoms can petition for removal of the tap.
Aim: Give the watchers more power. Passes: by voice vote.
- (D) Ben Cardin's: 3920 To modify the sunset provision from 6 years to 4 so that the next president can amend, and so FISA can keep up with technology.
Aim: Watch the watchers. Failed: 48-46 [needed 61 to override the GOP defacto filibuster]
(Clinton not voting)
Plato's answer to this is that "They will guard themselves against themselves. We must tell the guardians a noble lie. The noble lie will inform them that they are better than those they serve and it is therefore their responsibility to guard and protect those lesser than themselves. We will instill in them a distaste for power or privilege, they will rule because they believe it right, not because they desire it."
Plato was overly naive. That's why a system of separation of powers, checks and balances, was devised.
That mechanism ended in America under this President Bush and this generation of Democrats.
Shame.
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Missing Votes
Abijah -
Since you mentioned Clinton's absence in the vote on Cardin 3920, it's also worth noting that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did not vote on either Feingold amendments on Thursday.
So the tally on Democratic amendments to improve the SSCI bill:
Hillary Clinton: Voting on 0 of 3
Barack Obama: Voting on 1 of 3
How sad is it that I'll be pulling the lever for one of these sorry pieces of cowardly Democrat in November?
And once again, let's remember that Harry Reid put us in this position by making the Bush/Cheney/Rockefeller Intel bill the underlying bill, and not the better alternatives from the Judiciary Committee or the House-passed RESTORE Act. Be continually disgusted with the absenteeism of Clinton and Obama, but never stop targeting Reid with our ire.
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