Dodd's Filibuster Threat Stalls Wiretap Bill 483
otakuj462 sends in an important followup to this morning's story on telecom immunity legislation. "Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary victory today after his threats of a filibuster forced Democratic leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance... [T]he threat of Dodd's filibuster... persuaded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to table the act until January. A compromise on the immunity will ostensibly be worked out in the interim period."
Chris Dodd's voting record. (Score:4, Informative)
Show Apprectiation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Chris Dodd's voting record. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DoS against Democracy (Score:1, Informative)
Yours is more a dumb post than an interesting one.
Re:DoS against Democracy (Score:5, Informative)
Now that said, a filibuster is a kind of interruption to the flow of legislative activity. But it's sometimes necessary since there are times when majorities take advantage of minorities in the process. The filibuster helps to ensure that the minority is heard even when the majority would rather not listen to them. I have watched some pretty atrocious stuff happening on C-SPAN where the majority was simply ignoring proper procedure during legislative activities giving no voice at all to the minority side or their interests. When the gang or the mob is in control, the filibuster ensures that a minority can be heard.
Glenn Greenwald reports on Harry Reid's duplicity (Score:5, Informative)
nitpick (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Immunity is illegal anyway (Score:3, Informative)
The telecoms and their advocates in Congress like Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and apparently Harry Reid (D-NV) argue that they're not changing anything from illegal to legal, rather they're filling a legal vacuum and the telecoms benefit as a result. How convenient and timely. Also as I understand the term, ex post facto usually refers to laws that make something newly illegal, subjecting people who had committed no crime to criminal penalties.
The most egregious senatorial hijinks of this affair has been Reid's ignoring Dodd's "hold" on the bill. He doesn't ignore holds on bills requested by republicans, but someone from his own party can't expect to have his honored. Glenn Greenwald [salon.com] at Salon has been documenting this case for a while. That link goes to today's installment, but when the hold was first requested weeks (months?) ago, Greenwald had that story too.
Re:Ron Paul won't allow warentless wiretapping (Score:5, Informative)
While I don't favor this, you would be hard pressed to argue that the UN has had a very productive impact in most of the activities they have undertaken. And even when their stuff has worked, it has usually been with the US doing most of the legwork. The UN is mainly an organization that allows its members to say they support international partnerships, while performing relatively few useful functions of its own.
remove the constitutionally protected women's right to choose
Last time I checked a woman's right to choose was protected by a Supreme Court decision, not the Constitution. Whether or not one supports abortion is another matter, but lets be clear on that.
remove public education
Not a bad idea considering the Constitution provides no basis for the federal government to be involved in education, and our schools are failing anyway. Plus, our students did better comparatively against other nations before the US Dept of Education was instituted.
Re:Immunity is illegal anyway (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Immunity is illegal anyway (Score:5, Informative)
"1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action.
2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed.
3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.
4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender."
Ex post facto laws are only those which punish people who were formerly innocent - not the other way around.
Disclaimer: IANAL
I wrote my Congressman, and he replied (Score:3, Informative)
(Reply follows)
----
Dear Mr. InvisiblePinkUnicorn:
Thank you for expressing your views on legislation that would provide retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless surveillance program.
In December of 2005 it was first reported that President Bush had authorized the NSA to monitor communication between U.S. citizens and terrorist suspects outside the United States without first obtaining a warrant. Some telecommunications companies participated in this program and provided the government with access to phone records. Serious questions arose about the legality of this program and its compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).
In August 2007, Congress passed revisions to FISA, which I opposed, expanding the authority of the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to conduct surveillance of foreign targets. Under this legislation telecommunications companies that assist the government in the future implementation of this program were granted immunity from criminal and civil action.
This legislation expires in early February, and Congress is currently considering further revisions to FISA. President Bush has requested that any further modifications to FISA contain retroactive immunity for any telecommunications company that participated in the program since its inception. While developments in technology may require modest modifications to our intelligence laws, I will oppose efforts to provide retroactive immunity for illegal wiretapping as it is inconsistent with our democratic principles. All citizens must have legal recourse when their rights are infringed upon, and companies must bear the responsibility for breaking the law.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Sherrod Brown
Re:Ron Paul won't allow warentless wiretapping (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ron Paul won't allow warentless wiretapping (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ron Paul won't allow warentless wiretapping (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:5, Informative)
For the Democrats (e.g. Dianne Feinstein who can be reached at 202-224-3841), one motive is the obvious one: telecoms contribute to campaigns.
Much more is at stake for the Republicans, since the president broke at least several federal statutes relating to wiretapping. While this is all something that "everybody knows", that has no legal significance and no one bears any meaningful responsibility to do anything about it. But if the EFF lawsuit (among others) doesn't have its legal basis legislated right out from under it, then it will be revealed in a court of law that the president committed federal crimes. The telecom immunity legislation was designed by the executive branch to extend immunity not just to telecoms who broke these laws, but to anyone in the government who asked them to do it (PDF): [fas.org] Obviously the EFF lawsuit presents a pickle for the Republicans if it is legally shown that Bush was complicit in lawbreaking, and they don't want the lawsuit to proceed further. But this is a problem for the Democrats too. Once it becomes legally evident that Bush broke the law, it becomes incumbent upon them to do something about it, or they are breaking the law with their inaction. Everyone knows Bush is a criminal, but nobody wants to be responsible for knowing. Politics as currently practiced is a fragile thing, home to a glassy web of unspoken agreements and hard-won compromises. A development like this would come stampeding in on all that like a bull in a china shop. This telecom immunity law will make a lot of headaches go away for a lot of people- the telecoms themselves are actually minor players here.
it'd take quite some primarying (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, Dodd's first attempt to stall the legislation failed, 76-10. Only 9 other Democrats supported him.
Re:Now only (Score:1, Informative)
He is an old school Republican who wants to do away with all of the neocon BS and get us back to the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, and a humble foreign policy.
I am no longer a Republican and swore never to vote for another one unless Ron Paul ran. Honestly the GOP doesn't like him because he is trying to reel them back in off of their mental holiday.
You should seriously do some research on him. Here are some of his original policy pieces:
http://ronpaullibrary.org/ [ronpaullibrary.org]
Re:to be fair, not exactly watertight (Score:5, Informative)
The idea that "inventing rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution" is somehow beyond the pale is directly contradicted by the plain meaning of the 9th Amendment.
Re:Ron Paul won't allow warentless wiretapping (Score:1, Informative)
Net neutrality is not something that's optional if the internet is to continue to be anything more than a glorified TV. It's a requirement. No net neutrality == no internet freedom.
Saying net neutrality is "regulating the internet" is propaganda.