My comment: Bear in mind when you read this that everything Hitler did was perfectly LEGAL.
And muchas gracias, Matt! I spent the day researching what to say on FISA and the Protect America Act - after watching Cheney and his nazi supporters on c-span I dissociated and couldn't put the article together that I wished to write.
It's make or break time, America!! Harry Reid says that he is forcing this to fillibuster to get the democrats attention - this is NO TIME for partisan politics. And this entire issues should been part of a serious impeachment process, handled by parties not subject to maipulation by the telecoms. Now isn't everyone subject to manipulation by telecoms? Guess so!!
Way to go Congress!! Wade through the muck you've already created. Smelll the stench as you wade, get used to it - as there will be PLENTY more.
Veeger
Cheney to Congress: "Make warrantless wiretapping permanent", by Matt Janovic
Washington D.C.--Today's rare glimpse of the vice president all appears to have begun over a letter written by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) urging the White House to allow for more time to consider provisions of a bill to extend the government's abilities to wiretap domestically. Reid and others want oversight provisions and more. In an unsurprising move, the ever reclusive Vice President crawled-out of his secret bunker and issued an ultimatum to Congress today demanding that spying on American citizens--as well as foreigners--be made permanent. What the vice president and president want is the addition of a feature in the sunsetting "Protect America Act" (Public Law 110-55), a bill that was rashly passed by the 110th Congress at the end of August of 2007, and against the will of the public.
The White House has vowed to veto any version of the renewed act that doesn't include specific provisions. What does Cheney want? The Bush administration (Cheney) wants a provision that gives retroactive immunity to the telecoms (all-but-one complied without warrants) over aiding in perhaps thousands of FISA violations under an illegal NSA wiretapping program that failed to obtain warrants from the oversight court. Blah-blah-blah, "9/11," blah-blah-blah, "war on terrorism," and more blah-blah-blahs, were the reasons given to offer law-breaking communications corporations like AT&T, Verizon, Southern Bell (SBC), MCI, and many others (some unknown at this writing). Does haste make waste? My Grandmother always said it did:
"We're reminding Congress that they must act now," Cheney told the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The law, which authorizes the administration to eavesdrop on phone calls and see the e-mail to and from suspected terrorists, expires on Feb. 1. Congress is bickering over terms of its extension. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to extend the stopgap Protect America Act without expanding it, raising stakes for an expected showdown in the Senate later this week on a new version of the law. (AP, 01.23.2008)
The 2008 elections loom large on the horizon. Is Senator Reid just trying to give Democratic incumbents the appearance of an opposition party, or is this a real shift from their timid and co-conspiratorial behavior from 2000-on? Nonetheless, the vice president's speech is being heavily-hyped by our corporate media in an attempt to drown-out all other voices on the issue, just as they did to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
As usual, Cheney's speech was made on unconsecrated ground, where nobody with any sense would laugh or balk at the vice president's statements today: the Heritage Foundation, where expressing common sense and reason are career-liabilities. None of this matters, action speaks louder than words. Congress is likely to capitulate on this issue unless we nearly break-their-hands forcing them to let the Protect America Act sunset and die after February 1st, 2008. Will they, or won't they? Regardless of the desire to scratch the immunity provision on-the-part of the Democratic majority, they still want to extend the program of spying on Americans, just with oversight by Congress.
But is the threat that bad, is it real? How could you even prove it was until there was an attack? It's all about instilling fear, and most incumbents are thinking on the same level as the White House: milk the war on terrorism for political-points. In-addition, the public isn't taking Congress or the White House at their word as they did in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, which a simple glance at the polls has made clear since as early as late-2004 (about the time that the NYT discovered the warrantless surveillance programs).
Economic woes are only going to exacerbate the dislike for incumbents, especially if they don't start delivering broad-based reforms. The next sweeping-out of Congress could very well mean an end to this political generation and the rise of a new one. Several interconnected DC-scandals could finish the job. The Democrats understand this dynamic of the mandate better than the GOP, and the pressures must be immense at this writing. Preserving Democratic-gains made from the 2006 midterms will require giving the public something, and something will have to go.
On this note, Senator Harry Reid seems to be leading-the-charge against the immunity provisions, so we must assume that it's becoming a mainstream issue within the Senate itself. The reality is that it's been senators like Russell Feingold (D-Wi.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.), who have been keeping this issue alive. Other than Arlen Specter, there have been no progressive voices coming from GOP incumbents on this issue. Surely, civil libertarians of all-stripes are pelting Congress with angry e-mails, phone calls, and letters as this is being written. If they aren't, they'd better start doing it immediately, criminals cannot reform themselves. For that matter, they cannot be trusted to investigate or arrest themselves. Going widely unreported by the mainstream press are the actions by Sen. Christopher Dodd who is threatening once again to filibuster the bill in the Senate. What are his chances of succeeding? Not bad: Efforts to pass the Senate FISA bill stalled in December when Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) pledged to filibuster any measure that provided phone companies with immunity. Reid pulled the bill from the floor so the Senate could finish its other work. Dodd on Wednesday again said that he would work to defeat any efforts that included such protections. “I’m just not going to give them a free pass,” Dodd said. Before filibustering, he said he would support an amendment that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) plans to offer that would strengthen the FISA court and does not include immunity for the carriers. Leahy’s amendment is based on the bill passed by the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs. He would not say on Wednesday whether he would support a filibuster by Dodd. (theHill.com, 01.23.2008)
Retroactive immunity is like letting the primary accomplices to a major crime off-the-hook so that they can commit the same crimes again-and-again for a future administration, presumably Republican. Granting immunity will absolve this administration and her allies of an unknown number of high crimes, possibly even treason, and it will create dangerous precedents. It should be clear to anyone that Sen. Specter is acting-on-behalf of his party, doing his best to protect the GOP from a long-delayed justice. This is un-American in every respect.
Are Senator Reid and others in Congress starting to listen to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)? EFF's contention back on December 5th, 2007 was that Congress shouldn't rush things--exactly the opposite of what the White House is calling for. This mess has been ongoing since December of 2005 when the existence of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program was revealed in The New York Times. They had been sitting on it for a year. We can wait to pass this bill until it resembles something Americans can be proud of.
'EFF Calls on Senate Judiciary Committee and Full Senate to Take More Time and Not Let Telephone Companies Off the Hook: http://www.eff.org/press
The Hill (yes, the Hill) on the wiretapping battle, 01.24.2008: http://thehill.com/leading-the
The sound of our liberties dying, 01.23.2008 (AP): http://ap.google.com/article
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