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Dodd, Feingold To Try and Filibuster Immunity Bill
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jun 25, 2008 09:00 AM
from the battling-the-inevitable dept.
from the battling-the-inevitable dept.
shma writes "This morning the senate has a scheduled cloture vote to cut off debate on the FISA bill which grants retroactive immunity to telecoms who engaged in warrantless wiretapping. Senators Russ Feingold and Christopher Dodd have pledged to try and filibuster the bill, but require the vote of 40 senators to keep the filibuster alive. The article states that a similar 'threatened filibuster failed in February, when the Senate passed a measure that granted amnesty and largely legalized the President's secret warrantless wiretapping programs.' Should they lose the cloture vote, the bill is all but assured of passing. A proposed amendment stripping the immunity provision from the bill is also expected to fail."
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Your Rights Online: FISA Bill Vote Today, With Telco Immunity 465 comments
Bimo_Dude writes "Today (June 20), Steny Hoyer is bringing to the House floor the latest FISA bill (PDF), which includes retroactive immunity for the telcos. The bill also is very weak on judicial review, allowing the telcos to use a letter from the president as a 'get out of liability free' card. Here are comments from the EFF. Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, describes the effect of the immunity clause this way: 'So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words — the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists — and the minute he utters those words, the courts are required to dismiss the lawsuits against the telecoms, no matter how illegal their behavior was.'"
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Your Rights Online: Senate Delays Telecom Immunity Vote Until After July Recess 148 comments
ivantheshifty writes with news of a delayed vote (failed filibuster attempt aside) on the updated FISA bill which has been discussed here recently, in particular because it would grant telecom companies immunity (under certain conditions) from suits for wiretapping conducted at government request. According to the Associated Press story carried by the Washington Post, "Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and more than a dozen other senators who oppose telecom immunity threw up procedural delays that threatened to force the Senate into a midnight or weekend session. The prospect of further delays was enough to cause Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to postpone the vote until after the weeklong July 4 vacation."
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Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the Bush administration would look pretty silly going to FISA after the fact to get a warrant for spying the Democratic National Committee.
This way, they can use the excuse of terrorists, and spy on any one they want to.
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Re:Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Informative)
Dick Cheney was part of Nixon's administration during Watergate. He's said before that it taught him to never write anything down if he could avoid it. Hence his famous quote "I learned early on that if you donâ(TM)t want your memos to get you in trouble some day, just donâ(TM)t write any."
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Re:Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Retroactive warrants (Score:5, Interesting)
Because they're monitoring everyone's phone. FISA allows the feds to sneak a peak at someone's phone and apply for a warrent to tap THAT phone after the fact. It doesn't allow for wholesale surveillance of the nation.
The White House plan was exactly that, so FISA wasn't enough.
Moving away from facts to opinions, it makes me want to puke that this bill is called a "compromise". The things that are compromised are our civil liberties and the law. It busts me up inside. I'm a progressive minded guy, but I have to rank my priorities. The rule of law has to come before other things I'd like to see politically -- like national healthcare and so on.
The Democrats like to promise both, but when it comes to the fight, they say to their civil libertarian base, "Hang on, children. It's just not viable to investigate that or impeach that guy. Not in an election year!" As if I care if you get elected if you're not holding some feet to the fire.
The real tragedy is that there's a consensus on civil liberties that's divided across the party lines. The libertarian wing of the Republicans and the (civil) libertarian wing of the Dems are always left out in the cold by their party leadership. We just get fucked on both ends, don't we?
If there was room for third and fourth and fifth parties, we wouldn't have to sit in the back of our respective conventions, holding our hats and pleading that this year they take our platform seriously. Instead, we vote along each year based on BS wedge issues like gun rights, gay marriage, and abortion when the truth is the real decisions on these issues matters so very little compared to nationwide surveillance.
Screw it. I say make guns illegal for those over 18, but require minors to carry machine guns by law (and no nambly-pambly assault rifles either). Break up all heterosexual marriages and assign everyone a new gay spouse. No abortions during the first three trimesters, but free abortions during the first year after birth... just VOTE TO STOP THE PHONE TAPPING.
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Call (Score:5, Informative)
Call and remind your representative that he or she has an oath of office and a public image to sustain, and voting for this bill cannot possibly be a supportive action for either.
Seriously, if this thing passes and becomes law, it should be the job of every /.er to write to their local newspaper and lambaste their representative for voting in support of a bill which violates every citizen's constitutional rights, and aids, abets, and forgives those who broke the law in ante facto.
Conversely, if a /.er's rep votes against it, that /.er should write in support of their representative's action.
Dodd... (Score:5, Interesting)
I met Dodd once. Struck me as typical politician (Score:5, Interesting)
I met Dodd once. He was trying to sneak a relative into an event where I was interpreting for foreign dignitaries. The woman working security told him his guest did not have the proper credentials to enter the VIP area. His response was quick:
"But I'm SENATOR Dodds."
She wasn't impressed:
"Yes, I know that. And HE doesn't have the proper credentials."
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Where's the Democrat logo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, must be that evil, lame duck Bush Administration using his monarchy powers to get this through with the Republican Sith... ]sic[
It's all gamesmanship (Score:5, Insightful)
There's *always* an election coming up. If you don't vote for people with a backbone when the chips are down, and keep accepting the excuses, nothing will ever change.
This is why Republics Fail (Score:5, Interesting)
Try TO Filibuster (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure they will try TO filibuster since they'll be speaking English.
How does this happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How does this happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply put, it's an election year and none of the Democrats want to appear "soft on terrorism/defense/insert-the-buzzword-of-the-day-here", out of fear of losing their jobs.
Unfortunately for "we the people", their fear means the loss of more of our civil liberties.
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3 choices (Score:5, Insightful)
If Obama votes to pass this, you know he is compromised.
If he skips the vote, you know he will not stand up for what is right in the face of intimidation by big business etc - which is almost as bad as the first choice.
If he votes the bill down, then he'll really be showing something...
Unfortunately I don't expect him to show much of anything when it really comes down to taking a risk.
He sounds great, and certainly is better than the other candidate(s), but anyone can get up and talk about freedom and healing, etc. It is an entirely diferent thing to stand up in front of the machine and refuse to play ball or roll over. If he cannot do this, then we're in for more of the same.
Re:So will Obama be there? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Never any real change in a two party system (Score:5, Insightful)
People laugh at Jesse Ventura when he goes on Larry King and condemns both parties for exactly this kind of bill. But that's one ex-pro-wrestler who has Washington pegged PERFECTLY.
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Re:So will Obama be there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well? A politician who needs to compromise in order to get where they want is nothing new.
A good negotiator will give up something he doesn't need for something he does. He doesn't give up something important for something trivial.
Why not show in your post that Obama needs the intelligence community and cannot afford to anger his constituents who have worked hard on a compromise?
If he is elected President, he will be the "intelligence community's" boss. If he isn't elected then as Senator he still holds power over them, not the other way around.
Granted, this compromise stills appears to be a potential death knell for the separation of the real church (big corporate money) and state
A vote for a Democrat or Republican is a vote for a politician beholden to the national religion (money worship and corporations). Both are corporate funded entities. Neither is pro-human, both are pro-corporate.
condemning someone for doing what may be necessary doesn't seem very productive especially when the alternative is someone who works toward very sinister ends as well (looking at you, Mr. McCain).
Dammit man, there are more than two candidates for President!!!!! So far I plan on voting for Barr, even though he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. I stopped voting for "the lesser of two evils a while back.
If you say "if you don't vote Democrat or Republican your vote is wasted", well if that's so then a vote for loser Gore was a wasted vote too, now wasn't it? You should have voted for Bush rather than wasting your vote on a loser. Just look at the popularity polls, vote for the guy you think has the best chance of winning and vote for him so you don't waste your vote.
If you follow that twisted corporate logic, then I plan on wasting my vote this November. Wasting my vote on a loser is better than voting for a man who wants me in prison.
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Re:Blaming the wrong people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. That's the line of crap they give us proles & the Telcos have squadrons of attack lawyers who should have knew better, if in fact they were consulted at all. Qwest had enough sense to say no, the rest of them can die in a fucking fire.
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Re:Blaming the wrong people... (Score:5, Insightful)
They were asked to help their country and got some bad legal advice.
The companies knew they were breaking the law. They have the best FISA lawyers in the world on retainer but decided to break the law anyway.
But it really isn't about the corporations or the outcome of law suits. By granting them immunity the illegal Bush programs will never make it to court and thus the public will never know exactly what went on or how extensive the spying is. Do you seriously believe the Bush administration is obeying any laws at all in an area they can keep in the dark just by mumbling "National Security"?
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You can't think of any? That's your argument? Ugh. (Score:5, Informative)
* Global Poverty Act (S.2433)
* Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act (S. 230)
* Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation
There's three, related to three very different topics, and all were an improvement in my opinion.
As for McCain-Feingold... he violates the spirit of it every time he catches a ride in his multi-millionaire wife's company plane. With respect to McCain-Lieberman, he both spoke against it to the press as the vote came up a few weeks ago, and then didn't bother to show up and vote one way or the other on the bill itself. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he wasn't in a contested race for POTUS nomination at the time.
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hehehehe (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Obama (Score:5, Funny)
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