ACLU to Protect the "Rights" of Machines

The people at the ACLU are planning to sue over the recent FISA legislation that protects the phone companies from being sued over the fact that they will help keep America open and protected from the murderous plots of fascist terrorists. If a terrorist in Syria calls a terrorist in Afghanistan directly without that call being routed through the US his call can be tapped to find information concerning terrorist plots but if that call is routed through a machine in the US then the ACLU wants the terrorists to be free to plot the murder of Americans. More interestingly if those terrorists call a telephone in Dearborn, Michigan that is set up with call forwarding (simply push *72 and hang up the telephone) and the telephone is set up to farward all calls to a terrorist in Afghanistan then the ACLU will be suing to protect the "human right" of that telephone. Rage Against the Machine indeed.

Democrats Paint Target on America

Well, here we are on day eight of Pelosi's Putsch, and nobody knows what our intelligence agencies have missed. The Democratically controlled United States House of Representatives allowed a critical law concerning the regulation of the FISA court to expire last Saturday night, leaving America more vulnerable to another attack. The relevant law allowed our people to listen in on the phone calls of known terrorists who call from overseas, in some cases the phone call is only routed through the US, even using the *72 service that reroutes your calls. This is very interesting for a wide variety of reasons, first off there is the question of whether or not Congress even has the right to legislate in the area of what may be an executive war power. It seems that whenever the two sides have gone towards the brink on that subject (powers of Congress vs. the powers of the Executive) one or both sides have backed off.

The other interesting point for me is that I, like millions of Americans, work in a potential target. Not only do I work in a target building but I take a target to work. Since 2001 al qaeda terrorist operations in the West have concentrated on public transportation and as my moniker "EL Rider" implies, I take public transportation to and from work. As of today the Democratic leadership has refused to consider a FISA replacement unless it explicitly allows their trial lawyer donors to sue telephone companies for participating in a program that helps to keep Americans safer. That provision effectively nullifies the law and may even nullify the existing program. According to Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller "What is the big payoff for the telephone companies? They get paid a lot of money? No. They get paid nothing. What do they get for this? They get $40 billion worth of suits, grief, trashing, but they do it. But they don't have to do it, because they do have shareholders to respond to, to answer to." When Jay Rockefeller is the adult in the room you know that they are having problems over there at the Democratic Party.

Pelosi Watch: Day 2 - Gone Fishing?

After skipping town last week without being able to find the time to protect America from terrorists by helping our intellegence services to, what do they call it? Ah yes, connect the dots. Well, Speaker Pelosi spent this weekend at her daughter's wedding but what is she doing instead of working this week? Has she joined the honeymoon?

This Robert Novak article outlines how much money trial lawyers, including some involved in current litigation addressed by the legislation in question have given to many Democrats currently involved in endangering America. Included in that list are Democratic profiles in courage Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-IL), they couldn't even be bothered to vote. If you work or live in a building that could be a target, by all means go read the Novak article. I will be thinking of those Democratic sell-outs as I walk into my "likely target" workplace Tuesday morning. What have our intellegence services missed during the last 36+ hours? Who knows? How much will they miss between now and whenever the Democraic leadership will allow America to protect herself? Who knows?

Democrats to America: Drop Dead!

What else could a headline writer write? Yesterday instead of considering a bill to extend the much needed FISA laws that allow our spies to intercept foreign terrorist's phone calls and e-mail messages that happen to come through the United States, the United States House of Representatives fumed over President Bush's legal use of his Constitutional powers as President to replace Federal Prosecutors. The current FISA law expires tonight and the House is not in session because the head Democrat, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is at the wedding of one of her daughters.

Let me perfectly clear, this is personal for me, I work in a target. I am not alone, there are workplaces across the country that are potential targets, including the United States Capital Building. The building that I work in, the Chicago Board of Trade Building, houses some of the world's most important interest rate and grain markets and this spring we will house even more of those markets as we complete a merger with the CME. I do not think that I am being arrogant or overly dramatic, it is not rocket science to figure us as a potential target. During my years in trading pits I have seen some real fear in people's faces but never the terror that I saw in some people's eyes on the morning of September 11, 2001. Those of us who were on the floor that morning (some markets never opened) all knew damn well that we could be a target, we also knew that we are virtually surrounded by potential targets, hell the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is across the street. I stood across La Salle Street from the Federal Reserve Bank that morning when I gave an interview to CNN and I'll never forget looking up at our building and half expecting a plane to barrel down La Salle and plow right into the front of the Board of Trade.

What many Democrats and many of their allies object to is the NSA tapping into the communications of known terrorists. When those terrorists make telephone calls into the United States our government can listen to those calls until 11:00 PM Central Standard Time tonight, February 16, 2007. Strangely there are surely instances where the Democratic leadership is now protecting the "civil rights" or "human rights" of machines. That is no exaggeration, many times neither end of the communication are physically in the United States, however the communications line travels through the United States. Another interesting example is the "call forwarding" service that is just a *72 away for most of us, that service allows a call to be transfered from a telephone in the United States to a telephone outside of the United States. In both of those examples the only "rights" of an entity in the United States being protected would be the "rights" of machines. Maybe they are afraid of this.

I must note that of my two Senators, the aptly named Dick Durbin (D-IL) voted to make it much more difficult for America to listen in on terrorist phone calls and the "new politics", "change" and "hope" guy Barack Obama (D-IL) didn't even bother to show up for the vote. The measure of a politician is his or her ability to convince people to do the right thing even when it pains them; this measure only pains terrorists, the fact that so many Democrats are against it makes them appear utterly unprincipled.

Many thanks to Dr. Sanity for inclusion in her Carnival of Insanities again this week. Go read her blog!