Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

After reading accounts of the debate and vote on the House floor yesterday on the Amash/Conyers amendment that could perhaps have ended the dragnet surveillance of the NSA on all of our communications, and noting that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi not only voted against the amendment but campaigned strongly against it before the vote, I was moved to tweet:

Pelosi encouraged fellow democrats to vote against the amendment, which failed by a very narrow margin of 205-217. Given her leadership position, it is safe to say that the amendment might well have passed but for her efforts.

What’s with Nancy?

Remember: this is the same Nancy Pelosi who spent years during the Bush administration pretending to be a vehement opponent of the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program after it was revealed by the New York Times, even though (just as was true of the Bush torture program) she was secretly briefed on it many years earlier when it was first implemented. At the end of June, we published the top secret draft report by the Inspector General's office of the NSA that was required to provide a comprehensive history of the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program secretly ordered by Bush in late 2001. That report included this passage:

    "Within the first 30 days of the Program, over 190 people were cleared into the Program. This number included Senators Robert Graham and Richard Shelby, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Counsel to the Vice President David Addington, and Presidential Assistant I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby."

So the history of Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi isn't one of opposition to mass NSA spying when Bush was in office, only to change positions now that Obama is. The history is of pretend opposition - of deceiving their supporters by feigning opposition - while actually supporting it.

[The Guardian (UK), Democratic establishment unmasked: prime defenders of NSA bulk spying, 7/25/2013]

We need better leadership than this. So we need to ask and even encourage our friends and neighbors in California to do us a favor only they can grant: replace Nancy Pelosi as a service to the rest of the country.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 7/25/2013 05:18:00 PM