United States Constitution RIP-Part Deux: Ship of Fools Edition

The lights are on in Washington DC; but there simply is no one home. The FISA court rules the Bush Administration's surveillance practices unconstitutional. How does the Administration respond? Well, of course, an attempt to amend the Constitution through fear based legislation rammed through Congress hours before summer vacation is to start. The fact that the bill permits the practices apparently previously found unconstitutional in secret does not cloak this action in constitutionality. But the quick sunset provision engineered in gives the act practical cover by insuring that it is not around long enough to ever be tested by the Supreme Court for constitutionality, and, at the same time, gives legal and moral cover for the Administration's criminal in nature ongoing surveillance violations. What better idea than that for 41 of the Democrat's best and brightest to sign on to?

This is beyond pathetic. The clincher is that FISA and the FISA Court are themselves very arguably unconstitutional in the first place based upon 4th amendment considerations, confrontation clause considerations and, to a lesser extent, separation of powers considerations. We are now layering unconstitutionality upon unconstitutionality in serial fashion. Force fix a constitutional defect to an unconstitutional statute with another unconstitutional statute.

Amending or restating the FISA statutes cannot ameliorate the Constitutional defect, make that defects plural. So this legislation does not do anything to "fix" the problem, the only thing it does is give the Administration cover. Lest we not give all our heartfelt thanks to the 41 Democratic mental midgets voting for this sham; let us also give our best to the Democratic leadership of both Reid and Pelosi, who by the way the votes were procedurally framed, clearly cut a deal to pass this junk before it ever hit the floor. What the hell is wrong with these people?