Glenn Greenwald looks at NSA "oversight..."

following up on toby's post last night, glenn offers some insightful reflections...

Glenn Greenwald...

Yet again, every Senate Republican followed White House instructions not to investigate the President, and this time did so despite the statements of several of those GOP Senators just within the last 8 weeks that such an investigation was urgent and necessary.

In lieu of fulfilling their pledge to discover the scope of the Administration's warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, Sens. Hagel and Snowe decided instead that they would support legislation which would create a 7-member Subcommittee (4 Republicans and 3 Democrats) to which the Administration is required to report all warrantless eavesdropping activities . . .

Senator Rockefeller ain't buyin' it...

The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House.

Greenwald again...

[I]t is almost unfathomable how little personal dignity these compliant GOP Senators have. [...] After standing up and publicly making those statement and issuing those demands, they completely reverse themselves a few weeks later when the White House decrees that they do so.

[...]

Let's think just for a brief moment about the always depressing topic of the role of the media here. Here are some rather critical and glaring questions which the hearings would have answered but which, now, remain unanswered:

Did the Administration engage in warrantless eavesdropping on Americans who have no connection to Al Qaeda or to other terrorist groups?

As part of any program, did the Administration engage in warrantless eavesdropping on the purely domestic communications of Americans?

Did the Administration initiate any other warrantless eavesdropping programs aimed at Americans besides the one revealed by The New York Times?

Why did the Administration never seek revisions to FISA if it believed that the law was inadequate or too cumbersome to permit necessary eavesdropping?

The media, intended to be the "Fourth Estate," is another. Are they really going to just walk away from this story without finding out the answers to these questions and informing Americans as to the answers?

[...]

The legislation that Sens. Snowe and Hagel embraced in order not to defy the White House is really nothing short of a bad joke. [...] But this "oversight" is self-evidently illusory and meaningless.

[...]

The issue which is left unresolved by all of these Congressional shenanigans is the issue that lies at the core of this scandal and several others: namely, we are a country in which the President has seized the power to break the law.

will the media "walk away from this story...?"

uhhh...

~takes a moment to ponder~
~scratches chin~
~thinks again~
~nods~

actually, yes, i believe they will, just as the republican senators walked away...

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