Bipartisan wiretap bill passes House
WW commentary
By
Caleb T. Maupin
Published Jun 29, 2008 5:48 PM
Left-leaning pundits, such as those on Air America Radio and MSNBC’s
Keith Olbermann, call for support of the Democrats on the basis of
“defending our civil liberties.” Olbermann, Democratic senators
John Kerry and Barack Obama, and Air America commentators have all ridiculed
the Bush administration for expanding the police state through wiretaps,
illegal detentions, torture and extraordinary rendition.
However, a bill was recently passed by the Democrat-controlled House of
Representatives which made the wiretapping of all private phones legal.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the bill, saying it was needed
to protect U.S. citizens from terrorism, her rhetoric not unlike that of
President Bush himself.
Not only the rightist Republicans, but many Democrats, the so-called
opposition, voted in favor of this bill, which gives the Bush administration
permission to listen in on the phone conversations of individuals without a
warrant.
This is nothing new for the Democratic Party. COINTELPRO started under
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, then continued under the Democratic
administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The FBI illegally tapped
thousands of phones, organized break-ins and even set up leaders of the Black
Panther Party to be killed as well as harassing socialist and communist groups
and leaders.
The Democrats wrap their rhetoric in the blanket of the U.S. Constitution, but
they have done nothing to stop the raids and harassment of the immigrant
community by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, even though the
Constitution makes it clear that all persons are subject to due process of
law.
The definition of “persons,” according to the ruling class
politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties, has never been very
inclusive. The very document which these Democrats wrap themselves in defined
Black people as three-fifths of a human being when it was written.
It seems that if the U.S. populace wants to protect itself from the force of
state repression, the Democratic Party is not where they should be placing
their hopes.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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