Make congress read thebills it passes. Many of the worst bills are passed by congress whose members later say they did not realize the contents of the bill or that "that" part of the bill was added at the last minute so they did not even know it was there. This is a procedure whereby everybody is let off the hook; the other dude did it, you know?

DOWNSIZE.ORG is working to make it mandatory for our politicians to read EVERY SINGLE bill they pass which will make them accountable for ALL of the legislation proffered by the sick-oh's among our political leaders - no excuses anymore, guys and dolls!!

Reported by the Washington Post today, Sept. 27, 2007

A federal judge in Oregon ruled yesterday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional, marking the second time in as many weeks that the anti-terrorism law has come under attack in the courts.

In a case brought by a Portland man who was wrongly detained as a terrorism suspect in 2004, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Patriot Act violates the Constitution because it "permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield, right, confers with his wife, Mona Mayfield, during an announcement in Portland, Ore., in this May 24, 2004, file photo, that a federal judge dismissed the case against Mayfield in which he had been arrested in the Madrid train bombings investigation. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled in Eugene, Ore., Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment." Mayfield had sued the federal government after he was mistakenly linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law -- with unparalleled success," Aiken wrote in a strongly worded 44-page opinion. "A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised."

The ruling in Oregon *********follows a separate finding on Sept. 6 by a federal judge in New York, ************who struck down provisions allowing the FBI to obtain e-mail and telephone data from private companies without a court-issued warrant. The decision also comes amid renewed congressional debate over the government's broad powers to conduct searches and surveillance in counterterrorism cases. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said last night that the administration "will consider all our options" in responding to yesterday's ruling.

Aiken's ruling came in the case of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain. The FBI used its expanded powers under the Patriot Act to secretly search Mayfield's house and law office, copy computer files and photos, tape his telephone conversations, and place surveillance bugs in his office using warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In a settlement announced in November 2006, the U.S. government agreed to pay $2 million to Mayfield and his family and it apologized for the "suffering" that the case caused him. But the pact allowed Mayfield to proceed with a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, resulting in yesterday's ruling by Aiken, who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Mayfield's attorneys said in a statement that Aiken "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."

The Oregon and New York rulings are the latest in a series of lower-court rulings that have called into question provisions of the Patriot Act, which Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Lawmakers have since amended the law, partly in reaction to some earlier rulings.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

While Obama may be a long shot, he is the only human running for president so I am going to do what I can to promote his candidacy. I hate politics but what if we get one of the you-know-what's in office, again?

A VIDEO

http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/north_american_union/canadians_fight_north_american_union_2007040657/

Something is very wrong, very troubling about this picture, this plan of the Bush government to erect a virtual fence on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. After all, Bush participated with the globalists, the trilateral commission and the CFR, etc., in secretly planning what is called the North American Union whereby Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, the participants, abandon their soverign nation status to become equal citizens of the NAU rather than their soon-to-be non-existant autonomous countries. Now we are to believe that Bush and his puppy dog Michael Chertoff are trying to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. - just after the Republicans secured legislation permitting Mexican truckers free entry into the U.S. (while only a couple of American trucking firms are permitted to leave the U.S. and enter Mexico)???

People need to be aware that while fences, real or virtual, not only keep people out (and we obviously have no plans to keep the Mexicans out) they also keep people in! This seems to me like the more likely purpose of the planned virtual fence at the Mexican-U.S. border. No, people say, Bush never intends this virtual fence to work - Bush is just to throwing a bone to the genuine conservatives who want to secure America's borders - a terrorist hiding under every other American bed according to Mr. Bush and puppy dog. Maybe, maybe not. (I happen to believe we should have secure borders because Mr. Bush has made us several million enemies in the middle east, serious enemies, some of them.)

Yes, sir, it is hard for those with more than a passing familiarity with the Hitler regime’s history and the marked similarity of that history with Mr. Bush’s own fascist legislation, (which totally ignores the Constitution he took an oath to uphold) not to ask whether this is a fence to keep us in, because we know damn well it isn't a fence to keep the Mexicans out!