We Need More Like This

Bush's pet FISA law, which the Senate cravenly passed a couple days ago, is now bottled up in the House and not going anywhere.

Yesterday Silvestre Reyes, a Democratic representative from the El Paso/Juarez area and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to President Bush about the bill. Bush has been whining that if the current law is allowed to expire, the government's hands will be tied in the Global War on Terror, or whatever it is we're calling it now.

Reyes responded to Bush in part, "You have...suggested that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized."

The whole thing is very much worth reading.

The U.S. Constitution is not dead yet. There are still some people such as Silvestre Reyes who understand what it means, and George W. Bush's attempt to impose an imperial dictatorship on the country has taught us how important it is. I'll have to write to Dubya and thank him for that.