It looks like Congress is going to extend the new wiretapping law, the Protect America Act, that they passed in August and which will expire early in 2008. Even though they said they were pressured to expand Bush's powers and vowed to roll them back, it looks like they're giving in to the fear that they'll look "soft on terrorism" and are going to extend the damned thing. The House bill would require "a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the interception of foreign-based communications by the security agency" but the Senate version will be more in line with the original legislation and probably will include Bush's request for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the "once-secret program to eavesdrop without court warrants." (NY Times) The recent Washington Post-ABC News poll said, "When the parties are pitted directly against each other, the public broadly favors Democrats on Iraq, health care, the federal budget and the economy. Only on the issue of terrorism are Republicans at parity with Democrats." [Emphasis added.] So, it looks like they’re going to sell us down the road to increase their chances of taking the White House and additional seats in Congress in next year’s election. Now, if that happens and they then start rolling back all of these Constitutional violations, then maybe we’ll be okay. However, I find it hard to believe that they’ll be willing to give up all this power. I don’t trust them and I think we’re in real trouble.

The Wonk