House votes against telcom immunity for illegal wiretapping
Bush has promised to veto any version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that fails to immunize the telcoms, but if he does not sign this bill, the ability of law enforcement entities to conduct surveillance will be severely curtailed. The question for Bush now is, "Will you admit that you live in a nation of laws, and that you can't order companies to break them with impunity, or will you undermine the fight against terrorism to keep your buddies at AT&T from facing the music?"
Instead of caving to that rhetoric, the House Democrats doubled down on their original legislation, by including a call for a commission, armed with subpoena power, that would investigate the secret spying. The bill also allows telecoms to defend themselves in court by showing secret documents to federal judge. The Bush administration had blocked them from using classified information in their own defense.LinkThe Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the leading suit against the nation's telecoms, applauded the House's moxie.
"Amnesty proponents have been claiming on the Hill for months that phone companies like AT&T had a good faith belief that the NSA program was legal," EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston said. "Under this bill, the companies could do what they should have been able to do all along: tell that story to a judge."
The White House had no such kind words, saying the bill was "partisan" and would be "dead on arrival" in the Senate.
the latest
latest episodes
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I actually skipped over this item on first sight because I automatically processed it as "House caves in as usual to criminal, privacy invading scum, so what else is new"
I really did. Things have been so bad for so long, my brain did not accept the input.
Also covered at DailyKos by mcjoan
FISA: The good guys win a big one
She has a comprehensive list of phone and fax numbers. It is important to let them know you care and are paying attention. In fact she quotes another diarist who called their rep:
Your calls make a real difference.
Cynicism = death Takuan.
not cynicism, just fatigue.
Hmm. How about Darth Takuan? That has a nice ring. What do you reckon?
shhh-hhhhuhhhhhh....shhuhhhhhh.... Antinous: I am your ______________
Things have gotten so bad so quickly that I'm concerned they'll still get worse under even a Democrat president. We've gone from "Give me liberty or give me death" to "Give me safety no matter what it costs".
As someone who writes software for a living and has observed the rapid erosion of privacy in the business sector alone, I'm very concerned that we are slipping into a totalitarian state.
As has been noted here repeatedly, the TSA seems almost totally ineffective in improving safety while simultaneously being very effective at conveying a police state attitude.
Now we have a president who has repeatedly disregarded laws intended to restrain him even in war time urging congress to retroactively grant that same ability to private enterprise.
Note that the only large telecom to refuse, Qwest, has been denied access to significant business opportunities with the government as a result. We have an executive branch that will stoop to anything to destroy the rule of law to gain what it wants - power and more power through fear.
This has a lot of parallels in other countries that were democratic and are moving into fascism. Please note the similarities to Zimbabwe and Mugabe, Russia and Putin. Also note that the press is under increasing pressure with regards to access to confidential sources in the US.
It's heartening to see congress finally growing some backbone finally. I hope they get a 2/3 majority on performing the investigation. I also hope they do pass the legislation that's been kicked around explicitly granting the press the right to safeguarding immunity of their sources.
We badly need to get back to a true fourth estate as well as a congress regaining it's own powers. If this fails, we are letting the president to usher our democracy into fascism.
#7 Chris has it right. Even under a Democrat I see liberty shrinking at the very least it will stay right where it is. Ask yourself, when was the last time a ruler gave up a power that their predecessor had? Bet you it was never, it is already an established power, why give it up? If good ole Ralphy gets the job then maybe. Klinton, or Borrat will enjoy their new power just as much as Bush.
(and I'm voting Dem!)
Help out a Canadian here. Is this a done deal, or will it just be killed in the Senate? Can Bush just veto this when it reaches his desk? Is there any hope that the good guys will win?
Repeal the Military Commissions Act.
Repeal the Real ID Act.
Repeal USVISIT.
Repeal IRTPA.
Repeal CALEA.
Even if it makes it through the Senate, which I doubt it will, Bush doesn't necessarily face as stark a choice as described above, due to his copious use in the past of the line-item veto. As he's a lame duck president and has nothing to lose anyway, he might as well take the personal blame for letting the TelCos off the hook - they'll take very good care of him once he's out of office anyway.
My question is, why can't they just outnumber the president? can't they just get a 2/3 majoirt to overrule a veto? At least, that's how I thought that's the way it works, adn this is a prime example of WHY the senate has such power.
Greetings
No line item veto in language just appropriation items
Though his bullshit signing statements come close - the inyeresting point would be the courts stance to a signing statement on teleco immunity
Quick somebody get Greenwald...
Pelosi needs to appoint people will to stand tall on immunty to the conference committee with Senate - mention THAT in your thank you calls....
Best outcome: An impasse kick this to next year
lawsuits carry on without the Senate language...
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
The main purpose of immunity is not about protecting the telcos from investigation. First and foremost it is about protecting the executive from investigation.
Yes he can veto it or it could get tabled. I don't know who the "good" guys/gals might be. There are no such animals in politics.
What I expect to happen is that we will very soon be at war with Iran as our economy collapses. The pressures on congress to fall in line and give Bush what he wants will mount.
"Hope is only where despair is."
war with Iran? Do you think they'll tell the American people it's started? Or will they let it get going for a year or two first?
Greetings
The 'good guys' are the ones like Pelosi who have grown a set about rejecting immunity..
Cynicism and "they're all alike" allows the right to win, keep holding them accountable and tell them when they do good!
The bill has a long road to travel before it ever sees Dubya's desk. House Senate Conference committe, then if they agree to language re-vote by both chambers then off to Cheney-ville
Like I said, best outcome would be impasse, assuming house comnferees stick to the language they passed
Often rules require them not to accept lanhguage explicitly rejected, in house case that might include teleco immunity
Lets hope for an impasse
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional. I'm surprised that this didn't even come up in the debates. How did this bill get as far as it did when it's patently unconstitutional?
How is this ex post facto?
This is election year grandstanding. It won't pass the senate without the immunity provisions, just like last time.
What they will eventually pass will look much like the last bill Pelosi refused to bring up for a vote, including the telcom immunity.
Telcoms vs. EFF & Co. - Telcoms are going to win nine times out of ten. No, that's not a good thing, but that's how things seem to work out in DC.
Until there are 40-50 new senators (both D & R) things aren't going to change.
hey, how about that Bushie feller pardoning himself for war crimes? That one din't have any trouble gettin thru.
Tell you what, Bush can give himself immunity if he can figure out how, as long as he leaves everybody else out to dry. And co-operates with any investigative process.
I am so sick of all the talk about how "the ability of law enforcement entities to conduct surveillance will be severely curtailed." if new FISA changes are not adopted.
Balderdash! The existing (and in force when telecom knowingly violated) FISA law is still in effect. Surveillance of a threat/suspect can be begin immediately for 30 days until a FISA court warrant is issued. FISA court is a panel of judges with high security clearance who can hear the evidence of probable cause of a threat and authorize continuing surveillance.
The only thing that will be "severely curtailed" by falling back to the existing FISA law is the ability of the Bush junta to ignore FISA court. The wide net, fishing expeditions of surveilling thousands/millions of American citizens with absolutely no probable cause will be "severely curtailed" as well.
EXACTLY!!
You know, it's really quite tragic. Short term interests--of members of congress to get re-elected, of corporations to maximize profit, of citizens to feel safe--have trumped any consideration for the long term and the big picture. We are all worse off as a result. Unfortunately the people at the top don't feel it as much and by the time that their lives are impacted, things will likely be so bad as to be irreparable.
I have some hope that maybe things could start to move in the right direction with Obama: he doesn't employ the idiotic tactic of only keeping advisers who agree with him, but actually seeks out people with differing opinions. Similarly, he's much more open to diplomacy rather than the Bush model of "we won't talk to you unless you agree to all our demands first".
There's a reason why it's a good idea to have a smart person as president. Foresight, inquisitiveness, and sound judgment are necessary to ensure we make important socioeconomic and foreign policy decisions as well as possible. Any of the three viable candidates remaining are better in this respect than Bush, but things would likely be better, in many respects, with a Democratic-controlled congress with a Democratic President. They could make some major changes if they didn't have to worry about overriding vetoes. At least, it would be worth giving them a shot.
But this is the awful thing about American politics. Let's say the Dems screw up as badly as the Repubs have. What choice does that leave you with? You can try to promote more progressive candidates in congressional contests, but you're always left with these two institutional juggernauts, both of whom have some very comfy relations with corporations.
I'm not of the view that corporate America or the GOP are "evil". In fact, one of the reasons I would never vote Republican (unless some major reversals took place) is because they are so wedded to a tribal us/them mentality.
What I think is problematic about the deregulation of the marketplace--which is really, I think, what the Republican party consistently delivers--is that it's extremely short-sighted. Not every sphere of human life necessarily works well with profit as the guiding motivation.
Take healthcare: if the main point of insurance is to pool risk, then universality should be a precondition before letting the markets intervene and letting profit-maximization take over. Otherwise, you get huge wastes of money spent on trying to pass the buck and only giving healthcare to the relatively healthy who don't really need it. This is part of the reason the US spends so much more per capita on medicine than anywhere else in the world. I honestly don't think you can significantly reduce costs without changing the nature of the motivations that drive healthcare decisions.
Similarly, consider the non-profit-driven ideals of university education (unfortunately being run more and more like a business), social infrastructure (roads, bridges, public transportation, utilities, broadband internet, etc.), and the "marketplace" of ideas (an awful metaphor since it leads to absurd notions like "intellectual property"; why should people be allowed to have exclusive control over certain ideas or images?).
With the police state, you do have a different motive operating other than greed: fear. People want to achieve a sense of security that is simply not realistic for the volatile world we live in. We must learn to live with an acceptable degree of risk; otherwise, we will start to slide toward the dystopian scenarios of Orwell and other authors.
Greed, ambition, and fear are more than just emotions: they are powerful political forces. Hope, intellectual curiosity, reason, and other positive human sentiments are hard-pressed to match their might but, unless you are resigned to apathy and despair, they are the only alternative.
Greetings
Mattazuma "Grandstanding"
Why yes it is!
But the truly odd thing is that Pelosi thinks the winner is going against the Nine-One-One meme
Democrats seeing Dubya as toothless and 911 as an empty threat with no polirical cost is fascinating
The dems grow a backbone, Bush fumes, film at eleven
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
"There's a reason why it's a good idea to have a smart person as president."
You don't really believe Bush makes any decisions do you?
Can McCain pick Cheney as his running mate?
(sound of Takuan wheezing)
I called my congressman (Ed Pastor, 4th-AZ: "The Fighting Fourth!") before the vote and after, to thank him for voting the right way. I also congratulated the House Dems for getting newbie Reps. Gifford and Mitchell, class of '06, to vote with the Democrats on a matter of principle for a change.
I've called Pastor every time this issue comes up. He's a reliable voter, usually, but not a leader. We need to keep the pressure on these people.
Democracy: it's kind of exhausting.
Without the blogosphere, this issue would never have come to my attention. Your liberal media!
oh gods, that isn't legal is it??!!!
I checked. No limit on terms as VP.
And despite being half dead, he's five years younger than McCain.
McCain/Cheney 2008
Your nightmares come true.
I don't give you any deep insider insight into this (I work at EFF, but I'm not on the lobbying team for this), but I can give you the broad picture of what happens next.
Congress is in recess for two weeks. When it gets back, the Senate will consider the new House bill. At the very least, the language in the House version will form the basis of those negotiations.
It's not true that a retroactive telco amnesty will have an easy ride through the Senate this time, even though they voted for it before. A lot has changed since then: just a few weeks ago, the "Blue Dog Democrats" -- Congressfolk in conservative districts -- were strongly leaning to voting for immunity in the House. They saw their opponents try to make this an issue in their districts, they've been following the revelations and more info that has come out since then, and many of them came out voting for this bill.
The fact that the House swung to voting against immunity, even though it's traditionally a lot more sensitive to "election year" issues is a big deal.
Finally, there were some procedural tricks used to get immunity through the Senate last time, to get around factors like the Chris Dodd filibuster (you could see the supporters of the administration trying the same tricks in the House, with less success). It was by no means a slam-dunk last time, and the longer this goes on, the less of a chance it gets.
It's not over yet, but this is major step forward. Six months ago when EFF first went to Washington on this, we got a lot of "you're naive to think they won't rubberstamp a blanket retroactive amnesty faster than you can blink". Everyone needs to keep up the pressure -- but those fighting that amnesty are not the ones blinking right now.
Some good links to follow all of this in more detail.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon -- his latest piece is a detailed examination of what happens next.
mcjoan at Daily Kos has been covering this well from the liberal corner; Tim Lee at Cato writes well from the libertarian angle.
EFF DeepLinks -- We're not necessarily the first with the news (we're kind of busy...), but we do go into more detail, and sometimes raise issues that other coverage misses.
Suppose this bill becomes law--so what? The NSA was already breaking the law to perform warrantless wiretaps. Legal or not, the government will do what suits it. I prize my privacy as much as the next person, but I'm not that concerned about the NSA listening in on my phone calls. How many of you who are so concerned about privacy take the time to sign and encrypt your e-mails before sending? You should be more concerned about Google tracking what websites you visit and what your spending habits are.
the principle difference between life as you know it and life in the old Soviet Bloc is that the latter neve had to pretend you had rights.
Take what you can get
My first thought is that Bush will draft a signing order right around the issue and grant the telcos immunity while he signs the rest into law. Welcome to the age of the most powerful executive branch in history.
"You don't really believe Bush makes any decisions do you?"
You're clearly forgetting that he's "The Decider".
In the very least he made the decision to pick Cheney while Dick probably started to take over from there, I'm sure he at least played a major role in choosing members of cabinet, etc. And while Cheney is clearly not stupid, the fact that the administration shows no flexibility in who it picks as advisers indicates that he's not smart enough--or not modest enough--to realize that he might be wrong sometimes.
Even if Bush's cabinet and other advisers are all intelligent, knowledgeable people, the fact that the conversation that they have does not seriously take into account opposing views totally skews the way decisions get made. Look at all the brilliant neocon intellectuals who got us into Iraq. They painted a beautiful picture on paper of what Iraq would become with a unilateral US invasion, but for some reason it didn't turn out that way.
Also, there are a number of things Bush seems really passionate about that he probably overrules even Cheney over, like stem cell research. I mean, his stance on that is so retarded that it must be his own ("Let's allow thousands of frozen, unused embryos to just sit in freezers rather than direct federal money to research that uses them for some good!").
Lastly, when has Bush ever changed his mind about anything? He's a "strong leader" apparently because he's so damn stubborn that no facts will get in his way of going with what his gut tells him to do. That an administration of this character should have such poor judgment is a reflection of all of these factors.
Andre Gide once wrote, "Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it." I'm an Obama supporter in large part because he seems much more like a truth-seeker than an ideologue who claims to know the Truth. He's someone who is willing to change his mind on an issue, to let his position evolve in light of recent developments (this is the case with his stance on Iraq). So while he's not perfect, I trust his judgment more than that of the other candidates.
Greetings
Let's not overlook recent events, like elctions, I guarantee Congress pays attention:
"Democrat Bill Foster was elected to Congress in Denny Hastert's long-time, bright red district in Illinois."
Foster ran opposing the WAR and Teleco immunity.
Congress can count votes and Foster winning after running the "harboring terrorists" gauntlet of the standar Righ wing 'nine one one meme' had to have a positive effect on this issue
This is not a slam dunk for Dubya anymore
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
Oh my gawd, are the folks in congress finally growing spines? Has there been new testicular transplant treatment? A small spark of hope.
It is about goddamn time.
naw, they're just hedging bets on where the bribes are coming from in about a year's time
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/0,,337484,00.html
Time to go throw eggs at Dianne Feinstein again.
What reason could Bush have for going completely apeshit over this issue? Like most cases where the government claims not to need oversight, it is likely that the administration took advantage of unrestricted unmonitored access to gather dirt on political enemies and further their own ends rather than "fight terrorism". I think Bush and Co. are scared that any investigation into the telecoms is going to bring out a whole lot of dirty laundry.
Turncoat Dem Senators that voted for immunity who are also on the Senate Intelligence Committee:
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Evan Bayh (D-IA)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Wyden, Feingold, and Whitehouse are on the Senate committee but did not cave. These are the senators that are auditing and overseeing national security. Considering 5/8 of them are willing to ignore the constitution, how well do you think they are auditing the rest of the national "security" apparatus?
This is great news. Would be great to see the telecoms held accountable. I'm pretty sure this is a list of who voted what on this in the end...
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll145.xml.
I just wrote my Representative to thank him for voting yea. I encourage you to do the same. (Hint - If your rep is a Republican, then forget it. Not a single one voted yea. My advice, throw the bums out.)
ps. Thanks also to EFF for sticking with this.
When Bush says we have to grant immunity or the telecoms won't want to cooperate with the government in these surveillance activities to keep us safe, he is knowingly lying to the American people.
Telecoms are legally obligated to assist the government with wiretapping. Telecoms cannot refuse to comply with a warrant or a subpoena. And, I believe the old FISA law requires them to comply with governmental wiretap requests even before a warrant is granted. (Old FISA already allowed for 72 hours of wiretapping before needing to go get a warrant.)
One of the ideals of this country is that we are innocent until proven guilty, but since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, this has turned into a country where the citizens are guilty until proven innocent. We need to work to get this bill passed. I know I will be back on the phones as soon as this hits the senate.
Upholding the Constitution is the most patriotic thing a person can do. President Bush, you are the unpatriotic terrorist, not I.
(that line's gonna get me on a no-fly list if I keep using it, I'm sure of it)
Of course it's ex post facto. It changes the legal consequences for a law following the institution of that law. A pardon is constitutional but this type of law is not. Technically it's even a felony for a representative to support such a law.
We've gotten so far to the point where we feel that it's the government's role to make everything happy that we don't even consider our own checks and balances.
treason:
The crime is prohibited by legislation passed by Congress. Therefore the United States Code at 18 U.S.C. § 2381 states "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." The requirement of testimony of two witnesses was inherited from the British Treason Act 1695.