Bad Deeds for 2-12-07

A bill introduced last week by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) would require Internet Service Providers to record all users’ surfing activity, text messages and email traffic indefinitely

The bill, dubbed the Safety Act by sponsor Lamar Smith, a republican congressman from Texas (San Antonio and Austin areas), would impose fines and a prison term of one year on ISPs which failed to keep full records. Under the guise of reducing child pornography, the SAFETY (Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act) Act <> is currently the gravest threat to digital privacy rights on the Internet. Given the fact that the Act requires all Internet Service Providers to record the web surfing activity of all Internet users, this amounts to the warrantless wiretapping of the entire Internet.

Please contact any or all of the people and organizations listed below. Let them know that the SAFETY ACT, as it is written, is not acceptable.

Sponsor:

Rep. Lamar Smith, web form, 202-225-4236
Cosponsors:
Rep. Steve Chabot, (202) 225-2216
Rep. Tom Feeney, (202) 225-2706
Rep. J. Randy Forbes, (202) 225-6365
Rep. Trent Franks, (202) 225-4576
Rep. Elton Gallegly, (202) 225-5811
Rep. Dan Lungren, (202) 225-5716
Rep. Mike Pence, (202) 225-3021
House Judiciary Committee Chair:
Rep. John Conyers, (202) 225-5126
More

Republicans file bills in Austin to shoot first, retreat later in self-defense – Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio and Rep. Joe Driver of Garland have sponsored bills to have Texas join more than a dozen states with the so-called “Castle Doctrine,” a sort of shoot-first, retreat-later approach to defending hearth, home, truck and business. Legal experts wonder if they change is really needed. Jerry Dowling, a criminal justice professor at Sam Houston State University, said state law already protects self-defense of life and property, particularly in one’s home, or castle. [Republicans think the Bible says, “An eye for a eye, your life for my truck.”

Conservative pundit Mike Gallagher admits that he views terrorism not so much as a tragedy but as a campaign commercial for the Republicans – Gallagher said, “Seeing Jane Fonda Saturday was enough to make me wish the unthinkable: it will take another terror attack on American soil in order to render these left-leaning crazies irrelevant again. Remember how quiet they were after 9/11? No one dared take them seriously. It was the United States against the terrorist world, just like it should be.”

That’s some insight into the wingnut mind where they imagine 9/11 as a good thing, not just because you could buy crying eagle T-shirts and commemorative plates, but because it shut all those liberals with their facts and inconvenient truths up.

Nightline host Terry Moran says there is a deep anti-military bias in the media – Moran, co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline, said, “There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it’s very dangerous.” [Isn’t “projection of power” the same as bullying? – JLV]

Former Undersecretary of Defense Says Faulty Pre-War Intel Was ‘Good Government’ – Douglas J. Feith, the former Undersecretary of Defense whose Office of Special Plans was recently accused of pushing highly suspect pre-war intelligence to bolster the White House’s case for invasion, yesterday appeared on Fox News to defend his findings as “good government”. The Pentagon’s inspector general wrote last week that the claims of Iraq-terror ties were so unsupported that Feith, while not acting illegally, acted inappropriately by creating “alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship.” and that Feith’s office discredited or bypassed any officials who might disagree with or undermine the findings.

John McCain Taps Cash He Sought To Limit – In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment he has frequently bucked, John McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections. That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.

Texas Water Development Board Ignores Effects of Global Warming – Statements saying that Texas doesn’t need to plan for global warming, written into the 2007 State Water Plan approved by the Texas Water Development Board ,whose members are appointed by the Governor, have puzzled some of the top climate scientists in Texas who expect increasing evaporation but not additional rainfall as temperatures warm. Commenting on the board’s lack of action, Gerald North, distinguished professor of geosciences at Texas A&M University, said, “It is very hard to distinguish between ignorance and political motivation, but both hypotheses fit the data.”

Regards,

Jim