In a masterful use of the calender the Senate’s Republican leadership is preparing to force Democrats into a series of national security votes that will set the tone for the fall elections:

Republicans are eager to push legislation on the legal rights of terrorism suspects, after a June 29 Supreme Court ruling that the current system of secret military tribunals violates U.S. and international law. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) told reporters yesterday that his chamber is unlikely to act until at least September.
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Some GOP members are seeking a partisan showdown on the tribunals, to try to show midterm-election voters that Democrats are soft on terrorism, but some powerful Republicans have rejected that approach.

The timing is perfect and will be a replica of the votes the Reps forced the Democrats to take on withdrawing from Iraq. The Reps will host amendment after amendment drafted from the jibbering at places like Daily KoS and Democrat Underground. Here are some of my proposals which reflect the news media’s efforts to cripple our terrorism defenses:

(1) No Monitoring Of Terrorist Finances: The amendment should call for the immediate suspension of all efforts to track terrorist finances in order to avoid the potential possibility of the mere chance that an innocent US citizen’s finances may be seen by an investigator someplace in the government.

(2) No Monitoring Of Terrorist Communications: Suspend all monitoring of overseas communications with known terrorists to avoid the potential possibility of the mere chance that an innocent US citizen’s communication may be seen by an investigator someplace in the government.

(3) No NSA Leads To FIS Court: Make it illegal (again) to pass a lead regarding possible terrorists here in the US that are discovered by the NSA or CIA or any other non-DOJ element to the FBI or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FIS) Court. If a terrorist makes it inside our borders, then all information gleaned from their time outside this country are deemed invalid in a US Court since they were not collected following all the protections we give criminals. By extension this should include the use of intelligence from Foreign sources which have loser protections for privacy – like Interpol and MI5

(4) No NSA Support To FBI Investigations: Make it illegal for the FBI to ask the NSA or any other non-DOJ agency to support their efforts and retain phone records on calls between FBI surveillance targets and whoever happens to be in contact with them. This includes even when a FISA warrant is issued. That way there will not be 10’s of millions of phone call records resulting from warrants at the NSA.

(5) No Sting Operations To Coerce Potential Terrorists: Make it illegal to tempt wannabe terrorists with the opportunity to believe they are joining Al Qaeda or one of its many variants, that they can purchase weapons and explosives, that they will get training in executing terrorist attacks, or that they will get funding for terrorist attacks. This is seen as entrapment of people with easily duped minds and unfair, just in case we find a bunch of people simply day dreaming about mass murder – which is not illegal of course.

This just about covers the more important rantings and ravings from the far left, so let’s put these all to a vote in September and watch the Democrats diss the Kos Kids – again!

I am sure there will be more