``Protecting America is our most solemn obligation.''

``Improving Foreign Intelligence Surveillance to Defend the Nation and the Constitution Act of 2007' aka. H.R. 3356

So let's say you are in the government, perhaps say in the White House, and you get caught doing something illegal, what do you do? Well, if you are Nixon you resign. If you are G.W. Bush and you know everybody is too busy watching Paris or Britney, you pass a bill that makes what was illegal, legal. Good job guys.

What was G.W.Bush doing and why was it illegal? Glad you asked! From Cynthia McKinney's Articles of Impeachment http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr109-1106: In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 U.S.C. Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all but a few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to outright public deceit as on April 20, 2004, when he told an audience in Buffalo, New York: `any time you hear the United States Government talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so', whereby said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.

But wait, you may say, Bush was wiretapping on U.S. Soil, and this Bill deals with Foreign Wiretapping!

"It would be the first change in the law since the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants became public in December 2005. James Risen, New York Times http://cryptome.org/dems-suck-too.htm"

So if you like me were one of the optimistic few who thought voting a democratic majority into the house and senate last would "change anything," here is more proof that we were woefully wrong. For a nice summary of that election: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_general_elections,_2006.