Let’s see: terrorism bomb Taliban 9-11 Osama Islam NSA…Am I missing one?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—to hell with this wiretap-immunity bill, to hell with this climate of fear, and to hell with anyone so spineless and nutless as to defend it.

From BBC:
“US President George W Bush has approved a bill to shield telephone companies who helped in the White House’s controversial wiretaps programme.”

At this point, you’re either against almost anything Bush does, or you’ve had a traumatic head injury somewhere in the past eight years. I’m done even being nice about it, or pretending that both sides have worthwhile points. This administration has fucked up everything it’s ever touched, and used the destruction it’s wrought as an excuse to grab and abuse more power.

I’m not against the surveillance. I’m against the immunity. If our government has shown us anything in the past decade, it’s that it can’t handle the responsibility of power. And we all know how just and fair the telecom industry is—raise your hand if you’ve never had a problem with one of them.

Well, one just granted legal immunity to the other, in exchange for “assistance”.

I can understand Bush’s actions, and those of the opportunists in the telecommunications industry. The rich and powerful usually lose whatever shred of conscience they ever had, in their drive for more riches and power. Sociopaths do what sociopaths do—it’s how nature made them. It’s the supporters of the bill that make me sick.

The lawmakers.

Thanks, you amoral, broken, craven cocksuckers. Thanks, Washington zombie, so disconnected from your own humanity that your family have become mere statistic points. Thanks, shaky-legged, hand-licking Democrats, so grateful for a place at Lord Bush’s table that you’re willing to eat chocolate-covered pieces of your children’s future.

Thanks most of all, chest-thumping xenophobic warmongers. Because of you, we face ridicule abroad and oppression at home. You sold your birthright—your freedom—for ego inflation and a license to hate. Well fucking done.

Oh, and Barack—

“‘I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this,’ said Mr Obama, in a statement on his website. However, he added, ‘in a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people’.”

No shit. But it’s our government that is the biggest danger to us right now, and protecting the American people isn’t even on its list of priorities. We know it, and we know that you know it.

Try not to sell out your entire platform.

Because it’s never too late to write in Stephen Colbert.

***

Jennifer Caukin, of skype.com : “We have not received any subpoenas or court orders asking us to perform a live interception or wiretap of Skype-to-Skype communications. In any event, because of Skype’s peer-to-peer architecture and encryption techniques, Skype would not be able to comply with such a request.”

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