This Man Wants To Invade Your Privacy
Let me introduce you to the Congressman Earnest J. Istook. As you may or may not have heard on the news, he’s the one responsible for the 9/11 Intelligence Reform bill getting stalled in Congress, because he inserted a last-minute amendment that would allow legislators the power to look at your tax returns. Sure, there’s more to this story than meets the eye, but the most relevant fact here right now is that this man wants to take advantage 9/11 in order to sneak big brother into your lives :
This man is a hypocrite.
Since phone calls to our representatives generally fall on deaf ears, let me try another approach. Ernie represents Oklahoma’s Fifth Congressional district :
As you can see by the map, the three largest cities in Istook’s district are Oklahoma City, Shawnee, and Edmond. Are the people in these cities fully aware of what their Congressional surrogate is up to? Just in case they don’t, feel free to contact his constituents directly through letters or phone calls to the editors of the Daily Oklahoman, the Shawnee News-Star, and the Edmund Sun or through the local NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX affiliates. If you’d like to hit all these media outlets at the same time, try using the Democratic party’s “Alert the Media” page.
Istook is yet another example of the “What I say at home, stays at home” mentality that controls Congress. He pats himself on the back for being “the taxpayer’s friend” by supporting a balanced budget amendment, but he pats himself on the back for all the government pork he’s brought to his district and supports the president’s tax cuts that are mostly responsible for our record deficit and massive spending cuts. He ran as a “common sense conservative” while promising “integrity”, yet he’s sneaking provisions into a bill that’s a crucial part of our country’s efforts to protect ourselves. The people of Oklahoma deserve to know what kind of back-room sleaziness is being done on their behalf.
UPDATE : Okay, I screwed this one up. The provision was stuck into the $388 billion appropriations bill, not the intelligence overhaul bill. In my defense, I’ve been so hopped up on NyQuil for the past week, it’s hard to keep up with the latest twists in the GOP’s brazen abuse of the public’s trust.
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I don’t mean to be a pain, but the details are a little off. The Istook Amendment wasn’t part of the Intelligence Reform Bill.
Rather, it was part of a huge, 3000 page omnibus spending bill that Congress was trying to pass in time for the adjournment. Basically, the bill was a bundle of nine spending bills that hadn’t yet been passed. It represented the budget for a large portion of the federal government, which has been running on continuing resolutions. Josh Marshall over at talkingpointsmemo.com has been all over this, and has a pretty thorough account.
The 9/11 reform legislation fell apart because some House Republicans have been pressing to add immigration provisions to it.
Comment by Deven — November 22, 2004 @ 6:24 pm
Word to you Greg, and to Deven, for this excellent post. I’ll be writing my letter ASAP.
Comment by Joe — November 22, 2004 @ 9:41 pm
excellent post. im writing my letters at lunch.
this goes to prove my point that we the people are going to have to step it up for the next four years and stop wringing our hands as democratic leadership rolls over and dies on such issues.
keep posts like this coming!
Comment by josh — November 23, 2004 @ 8:32 am
Takes a lot of integrity to 1) sneak provisions in, 2) blame your staff and, 3) flippety-flop from one day to the next on just how that little bit popped itself in there.
Integrity trifecta!
Comment by debraz — November 23, 2004 @ 9:55 am
One other thing I wanted to work into the post but couldn’t was the fact that his campaign bumper stickers say “One Nation Under God”, as if he’d recieved some sort of devine endorsement.
Comment by greg — November 23, 2004 @ 10:14 am