Protecting Corporations From the Citizen Menace

I don't know who created this Time parody, but I've had it on my PC for over two years. I doubt it will ever happen. Bush lacks the integrity, character and sense of propriety that Richard Nixon had.
That's a pretty low bar to hurdle.

The last time we had a President who got busted conducting illegal wiretapping, that President resigned in disgrace.
This time around, Congress, which is purported to be controlled by a mythical 'opposition party' decided to legalize said wiretaps. It's amazing , but the Dems who voted to give Bush and Gonzales warrant-free access to American's telecommunications seem to have forgotten that Nixon's main eavesdropping targets were largely comprised of his political enemies, i.e, Democrats. Instead, they approved new legislation that seems tailor-made for loopholes and ambiguous interpretation:

By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.

If you send out an email to your friend's list and any one of those friends are are abroad, your emails are subject to scrutiny- as are your telephone calls. This has been going on, with the covert cooperation of several major telecom corporations, since shortly after 9/11/01.
Eventually, the telecom's role was discovered and this led to the filing of dozens of privacy lawsuits against the companies who enabled this illegal activity.

Wow. The phone companies have been illegally monitoring the conversations of American citizens. For years.
They've been turning the data over to Federal intelligence agencies.

That's a problem for those of us who like to think we live in a free country.

Here's Bush's solution:
Protect the Telecoms from the citizens.

Bush Seeks Legal Immunity for Telecoms

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration wants the power to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that are slapped with privacy suits for cooperating with the White House's controversial warrantless eavesdropping program.

The authority would effectively shut down dozens of lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies accused of helping set up the program.

The vaguely worded proposal would shield any person who allegedly provided information, infrastructure or "any other form of assistance" to the intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. It covers any classified communications activity intended to protect the country from terrorism.

Thank Godzilla that we still have Judges who believe that we are a nation of laws- Constitutional laws, to be precise. Once again , portions of the dubious Patriot Act have been found illegal and unconstitutional.

A U.S. District Judge decided to strike down for the second time key sections of the Patriot Act that would allow the FBI to obtain electronic communications data from private companies without a court warrant.

Marrero wrote, "In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual's personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association - particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies - a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability, checks and balances, and separation of powers that our Constitution prescribes.”

Face it. Bush is always going to take the side of the ultra-rich bastards who are screwing you.

-The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Program

- Katrina

-Tax cuts for hugely profitable corporations

-Tax cuts for the wealthy

-All Those Kids Left Behind because all the money went to tax cuts and war-profiteers.

-The mortgage that your bank promised you was a good idea.

-Iraq.
Face it: One focal idea behind invading Iraq was to raise the price of fuel by disrupting the international flow of oil...oil prices recently dropped a few pennies and the rhetoric for invading Iraq quickly intensified. Coincidence?
If you think gas is expensive now, just think what will happen if we bomb Iran.
First, they'll cut off any oil that might possibly reach the USA. Then they'll bomb the shit out of Iraq's fragile oil infrastructure.
We will drop more bombs on Iran in response, but by then gasoline will be upwards of five bucks a gallon...just a scenario, mind you.
Of course, any oil Iran does manage to export will likely be sent to our good buddies in China and Russia, which is a whole 'nother can o' worms.

Iran will strike back after being hit, probably with ground-based bombings in Iraq- between the USA and Israel the skies will be pretty much shut down, but the ground situation will remain at least as unsolvable as it is now- probably get much worse.

And so on... until everyone dies or peace breaks out, whichever happens first.

Peace and annihilation are likely to occur simultaneously.