The Hacker Factor Blog

If you watched the news yesterday morning, then you are certain to have seen something spectacular, even if you didn't notice it. Every news channel -- CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News Channel, and more -- covered the same story: the congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball.

My immediate reaction was "WTF!" I mean, seriously, baseball is not a congress-mandated sport and the baseball commission receives no government funding to "play ball!" In fact, baseball is a self-regulating sport (not regulated by laws). If they decide that steroids are fair game, then the only thing congress can do is pass laws to make steroid use illegal. Why are they even focusing on baseball at all, since it isn't even a monopoly...

Then it hit me: they are covering up the real news.

At the same time that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard testimony from Roger Clemens, the House began to debate whether to extend the Protect America Act (PAA). In case you are unclear, the PAA is what the government used to justify their warrantless wiretaps. Basically, the Protect America Act updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The key items of debate surround the protections it offers. For example, the PAA protects third parties from private lawsuits, if they assist the government. In other words, the telephone companies would be protected from lawsuits based on warrantless wiretaps. Also, the PAA does not require a court order to issue a wiretap request.

The President wanted the PAA to become law -- without another renewal. On Tuesday (12-Feb-2008), the Senate approved a modified version of the PAA. In contrast, the House of Representatives has been aware of the controversy around the the PAA and tried to work out the issues.

House Democrats wanted to postpone the vote for 21 days -- to give more time to address the biggest issues. (The PAA would forgive the telephone companies for cooperating without a warrant.) This motion failed to pass (191 to 229). Thus: no extension.

So what does this mean? If the House does not pass the PAA (or some alternative) by the current February 15 expiration date, then the PAA will expire.

Immediately following the vote, the White House issued dire warnings. The claim is that 'terrorists were planning fresh assaults that would make the Sept. 11 attacks "pale by comparison."' This threat from the White House seems more like FUD and peer-pressure to pass the PAA, than an actionable warning. Then again, spreading FUD to support warrantless wiretaps is not new to the Bush administration...

(This video is one of the most amazing pieces of fear mongering and deceit that I have ever seen.)


As the ACLU wrote:

The House should stand up to the bullying from the president and reject the administration’s lies and fear mongering. This administration has abused its power over and over again and it is time for the House to reject any attempts to consider the unconstitutional Senate Intelligence Committee FISA bill.

Ironically, the President, Republicans, and the ACLU agreed on one thing: none of them wanted the 21-day extension. However, the President wants the House to rush it to law, while the ACLU just wants the PAA to expire. (Confused? Perhaps Snuggly the Security Bear can clear things up for you.)

The mass media disgusts me. They colluded to bury real news beneath cruft. The collusion was not limited to major mass media outlets; every news broadcast I have seen (NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox) covered the steroids story and not the privacy issue. Even USAToday.com and CNN.com presented the steroids story on their cover page, but I can find no mention of the House vote or Protect America Act on their main pages. (If you use their search engine, you'll find a few paragraphs, but as far as I can tell, it never made either of their front pages.) This is clearly a case of Wag The Dog.

Thanks to Fergie for the pointers to Snuggly and the propaganda video.

Update #1, 14-Feb-2008: Valdis just pointed me to this article from MSNBC, which contains the following observation:

And after several hours of watching our elected representatives posing, posturing, blustering and thundering, the viewer was left with little wonder that Congress has a lower approval rating than cockroaches. They’ve had 35 years to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and we still don’t have a comprehensive policy. We’ve just had a report that Lake Mead may go dry in 13 years, and they’ve done nothing to curb unsustainable growth in that region. Yet they have leisure aplently to quiz a guy who throws a baseball — a professional entertainer, for pete’s sake — about how he came by his skills.