Hypocrisy, FISA, Guns, and Government: Jim Cooper Abuses His Congressional Throne
By Erick Posted in Congress | Corrupt Democrat Watch | Jim Cooper | NRECA | Tennessee | TN-4 — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The government, some would have us believe, is beyond the kind of criminal conduct that necessitated the second amendment. The Bush Administration, some Democrats would have us believe, is reprehensible in its handling of FISA matters and fascist in its nature.
If only the Democrats had more control, all would be well. Except it would not.
Today comes word that the FBI is investigating Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) for an abuse of his power. Congressman Cooper sought information from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association ("NRECA"), my former employer, that the NRECA refused to give him.
Cooper, undeterred, obtained a user name and password to the NRECA's intranet site from someone, and proceeded to probe internal documents and get what he wanted for his hearing without a warrant or permission. Having navigated through this same site, I assure you someone else was complicit in Cooper's actions. It's a difficult site to navigate to get to the information Cooper was after.
I worked at the NRECA. I know the organization. It is one of the most upstanding organizations in the Washington. It's programs around the world are impressive and commendable. I realize people have varying views on electric cooperatives, but without them, much of the nation would have been without power for a lot longer than they were.
Some cooperatives do dumb things, like any business. In this particular case, however, whether you care for electric co-ops or not, it is beside the point.
The point is the congressman, having been denied permission by a private entity to search its records, and without a court order or vote of the Congress granting him permission, went into the entity's private computer system and got what he wanted. Then he set about having a congressional hearing to probe the conduct of electric cooperatives nationwide using the documents he obtained through surreptitious means.
If an individual member of Congress can and does do that to one private group, a member of Congress can also do that to you.
There must be no tolerance for this behavior.
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Hypocrisy, FISA, Guns, and Government: Jim Cooper Abuses His Congressional Throne 8 Comments (0 topical, 8 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
and I wondered why the person who gave Cooper the password/log-in info didn't just go get the information himself if he was so eager to let Cooper have the info. I'm in no way defending Cooper here as I am a member of one of those rural co-ops and am grateful for what they do, particularly in times of violent weather when the lines go down.
I find it unusual that an experienced Congresscritter would allow his fingerprints to be all over something like this--literally.
The AG needs to prosecute this is a federal crime not a civil matter.
# Knowingly accessing a computer without authorization in order to obtain national security data
# Intentionally accessing a computer without authorization to obtain:* Information contained in a financial record of a financial institution, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer.
* Information from any department or agency of the United States
* Information from any protected computer if the conduct involves an interstate or foreign communication# Intentionally accessing without authorization a government computer and affecting the use of the government's operation of the computer.
# Knowingly accessing a computer with the intent to defraud and there by obtaining anything of value.
# Knowingly causing the transmission of a program, information, code, or command that causes damage or intentionally accessing a computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage that results in:* Loss to one or more persons during any one-year period aggregating at least $5,000 in value.
* The modification or impairment, or potential modification or impairment, of the medical examination, diagnosis, treatment, or care of one or more individuals.
* Physical injury to any person.
* A threat to public health or safety.
* Damage affecting a government computer system# Knowingly and with the intent to defraud, trafficking in a password or similar information through which a computer may be accessed without authorization
Of course our President seems to dislike actually prosecuting democrats for crimes.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
The Democrats have their little sleepers and wannabes inside the bureaucracy who will get anything for them or for a friendly reporter. I always assumed that anything I produced would be leaked and often produced pure cr*p just for the purpose of having it leak.
A few years back, the Ds used one of their union allies to run full background checks on Republican candidates using State and federal law enforcement databases. If you think what the cops can find out about you is scary, you should see what a child support enforcement agency can find out about you. Anyway, they got ratted off for doing it, it is easy to check the logs for who accessed what, but since we had a D governor at the time, they got a minor hand slap for it.
In Vino Veritas
Agencies have have on you. You couple that in with the marketeers have and its enough to make anyone paranoid.
I once observed to a man in that particular business "That Lenin and Stalin would have packed it in and outsourced the KGB to mastercard if they saw the data available on an American citizen", he just smiled.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
One day, if any Senators were fiscially responsible enough to have no debt of any kind, Congress ought to look into such things.
It not only is the leading cause of identity theft (apart from just plain old stealing of a wallet), but the smallest of mistakes on behalf of such companies causes destruction to a person's life in terms of interest rates and availability of loans for many years.
If only Congress lived by the Dave Ramsey plan.... heh.
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So, we should look forward to a lawsuit from NRECA, somebody internal getting axed, and a House ethics investigation.
I'll only count on the first two. The third seems to be a difficult task to achieve in this election year.
McCain for POTUS so the left can't ruin SCOTUS.