FISA, Illegal Government Wiretaps, Telecom Immunity and Congress Avoiding Responsibility
Posted on November 18th, 2007 in Civil Liberties, Partisan Free Politics by Andrew MacRae 
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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) bill is making quite a few appearances in the MSM these days. Apparently, Congress is debating whether or not to grant telecommunications companies immunity for working with the National Security Agency (NSA) post 9-11 to spy on each and every American Citizen. AT&T is taking the brunt of the criticism, but Verizon is also know to have co-operated (providing the gov. with all of my phone calls). (Qwest is the only company known to have declined the NSA's request, and also maintains that the warrantless wiretapping began 7 months prior to 9-11.)
Suspending the questions of whether or not the government should have co-opted the Telecom companies into violating the law, and ...
Mizero Children of Rwanda Bring Hope to a Continent on the Verge
I had the opportunity to see the Mizero Children perform in D.C. today. They are a group of young Rwandan orphans who survived the 1994 genocide, and have somehow had their musical talents nurtured. Which lead me to my question, what the hell happened to Africa?
As I scan the news of Africa, it is either genocide in Darfur, civil war in Somalia, kidnappings in Niger, coups in the Congo, Hyper-inflation-induced disaster in Zimbabwe, not to mention a South African government which refuses to believe in AIDs, or a litany of other issues.
The problems of Africa are egregious violations of the most basic human values, but there are also more self interested reason that the U.S. should be more involved. ...
Claim Democracy: On Common Ground
Posted on November 10th, 2007 in Elections and Election Reform, Government Reform, Partisan Free Politics by Andrew MacRae (No Ratings Yet)
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If you were to ask Grover Norquist, Spencer Overton, David Keating, and Hendrik Hertzberg what values they shared in common, you might be shocked. Grover after all, is the man who is fighting for his right to “drown the federal government in a bathtub”. The left vs right divide does not get any more drastic.
Nevertheless, when it comes to partisan free issues, these candidates found that there was a lot of common ground they could share.
Transparency. They all emphatically agreed that some form of ReadTheBill ought to be passed This would mandate that all bills be made available online and to the public for a mandatory period ranging from 3 to 7 days, before Congress ...
Claim Democracy
Posted on November 9th, 2007 in Elections and Election Reform, Government Reform, Partisan Free Politics by Andrew MacRae (No Ratings Yet)
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With all of the Buzz about third party candidates coming in to save the disenfranchised minority from Guiliani or Clinton, I thought that this may be an interesting time to say that I'll be at the Claim Democracy conference this weekend.
This blog is being move to a new server, next week as part of a technological overhaul.
One writer who isn’t on strike
Posted on November 5th, 2007 in Civil Liberties, Elections and Election Reform, Gender by Greyson (No Ratings Yet)
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It isn't easy to walk in another man's shoes, granted. But of all the most senseless misguided professions to unionize, Hollywood writer's have to take the cake (or at least finish a close second to actors, and just ahead of directors.) In this day in age, with the rise of blogging ushering in thousands of new could-be wordsmiths, it seems like the "professional" writers have little advantage in the market outside of their old-boy's club union (yes, the same "professionals" that gave you titles such as "Prison Break," flood the nightly airwaves with rehashed Monica Lewinsky jokes, and pen the endless forensic banter for all the 16 different CSI shows. And yes, the same guys that single-handedly ruined the ...
