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TechnoratiAre Democrats Planning Still Worse FISA Capitulations?
The enactment in August by the Democratic Congress of new eavesdropping powers for the President was one of the worst, if not the single worst, acts of capitulation to the Bush White House. The only comparable disgrace was the Democrats' complete failure even to attempt a filibuster of the Military Commissions Act, largely due to their decision to allow John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham to speak for them so that they did not have to participate in the debate. Once those three GOP Senators predictably blessed the MCA, Democrats had no strategy and thus actively enabled the abolition of habeas corpus along with the other abuses that Act legalized.
The FISA capitulation, though, was probably even worse. It occurred when they supposedly control the Congress. They enlarged the President's powers under the very law that he has been violating for years. They gave the Bush White House what it demanded even though the White House continues to provide them with no meaningful information about what was done during all those years when they eavesdropped on Americans in secret. And Democrats passed the law in a frenzy, under the crassest and most transparent exploitation of the Terrorist Threat ("a Terrorist attack is about to happen in DC and the blood will be on your hands unless you pass the bill we dictate").
Ever since that debacle, many Democrats have clung to the illusion that all of this will be fixed because the bill was passed with a six-month sunset provision and, some hope, the next time things will be different. But far, far more likely than the Democrats reversing what they have done when re-visiting FISA is the prospect that they will make it worse still, by giving the Bush administration even more of what it wants.
Specifically, almost immediately after the Democrats enacted the new FISA, the Bush White House and DNI Mike McConnell began demanding that Congress quickly go further by providing retroactive immunity to telecom companies who participated in warrantless eavesdropping by shielding them from the consequences of having broken the law. Once it had what it wanted on FISA, the White House decreed (bolded commands in original):
Our Work Is Not Done -- This Act Is A Temporary, Narrowly Focused Statute To Deal With The Most Immediate Needs Of The Intelligence Community To Protect The Country. When Congress returns in September, the Intelligence Committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, including the important issues of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Buried within an article in the New York Times this morning from James Risen is this passage, strongly suggesting that Congressional Democrats are ready, as always, to do what they are told:
Mr. McConnell argued on Tuesday that the expanded surveillance powers granted under the temporary measure should be made permanent. He also pushed for a provision that would grant legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that secretly cooperated with the N.S.A. on the warrantless program. Those companies, now facing lawsuits, have never been officially identified.
Democratic Congressional aides say they believe that a deal is likely to provide protection for the companies.
Granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies for past lawbreaking is so plainly unjustifiable, even dangerous, that it ought to require no real debate. That Congressional Democrats are even considering submitting to this demand, let alone that they are likely to do so, dispels any doubt about what they really are. First, retroactive immunity turns the "rule of law" into an even greater mockery than it has been for the last six years. The central premise in granting immunity is that telecom companies did nothing wrong -- even if they violated the law -- because they cooperated with warrantless spying at the behest of the President.
But we don't actually live in a country where private actors are permitted to commit crimes and violate laws provided that the President tells them that they should. The President has no greater power to authorize others to break the law than he does to break the law himself. Quite the contrary, Article II of the Constitution imposes the opposite obligation: "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Lawbreaking is still illegal even if George Bush says it should be done. Does that principle really need to be explained?
Second, the Bush administration -- by refusing to disclose whose conversations were illegally surveilled -- has successfully prevented any direct legal challenges to its warrantless eavesdropping activities. The Sixth Circuit this year dismissed the lawsuit brought by various citizens alleging the Bush administration illegally spied on Americans on the ground that the inability of any specific plaintiff to prove they were subject to that surveillance means that no citizen has "standing" to challenge the legality of the program. As a result, the 2006 ruling by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that Bush's warrantless eavesdropping activities violated both federal criminal law and the U.S. Constitution was vacated (without its substantive findings disputed).
The pending lawsuits against AT&T and other telecommunications companies for having violated the law by enabling warrantless eavesdropping on Americans' telephone conversations is one of the very few remaining avenues (though not yet the only one) for obtaining a court ruling as to whether the NSA spying program -- which the President ordered for five years at least -- was illegal. If Democrats do what the Times article suggests they are prepared to do, i.e. grant retroactive immunity to telecoms, that would compel dismissal of those lawsuits, which in turn would destroy what is perhaps the last chance for ever obtaining a judicial determination as to whether the President broke the law. What possible rationale would lead them even to consider such a thing?
Third, and perhaps most importantly, a Congressional grant of immunity for past lawbreaking would amount to a bipartisan endorsement of Bush's illegal eavesdropping program. To remove consequences for illegal behavior is, by definition, to approve of that behavior. Laws with no consequences for violations are meaningless. And those who seek to shield lawbreakers from accountability are endorsing the lawbreaking.
This underscores what I think is a critical point that cannot be emphasized enough. In late 2005 and early 2006, when I and others first began writing about the assault on our Constitution from this administration in the wake of the NSA scandal and the Jose Padilla travesty, the overarching issue was lawlessness. The administration's most radical and disturbing "terrorism" policies were undertaken without any legal authorization whatsoever, and frequently, in direct violation of the law.
But over the past twelve months, that has become less and less true. On every front of executive power -- from surveillance to detention to interrogation -- what was previously covert, lawless radicalism has now become the legally authorized and Congressionally endorsed policy of the United States, on a bipartisan basis.
On a strictly quantitative level, it is true that Republicans have been more supportive than Democrats of these policies -- in the sense that more Democrats cast votes against them -- but Democrats have done nothing meaningful to stop any of it, even when they could. Indeed, paradoxically, Democrats have actively enabled and endorsed this extremism more and more as they have gained more power. As a result, what were the illegal policies of the Bush administration have become lawful as the result of a Congress which does nothing when executive lawbreaking is revealed except enact legislation to legalize the behavior.
If the Democratic Congress ends up not only renewing and making permanent the vast new warrantless surveillance powers granted the President under the new FISA, but also provides retroactive immunity to telecom companies which violated the law, then illegal warrantless eavesdropping will be every bit as much a by-product of the Democratic Congress as it is one of the defining abuses of the lawless Bush administration.
Last October -- when Republicans still controlled the Congress -- the Bush White House tried but failed to force Congress to legalize warrantless eavesdropping and provide this immunity. Karl Rove made the failure to legalize warrantless eavesdropping a central feature of his midterm election campaign, and Republicans got crushed.
Thus, the very idea that the Bush White House would be able to force enactment of FISA legislation once Democrats controlled the Congress would have seemed unfathomable, at least to many people. But after watching the Democrats meekly sit by and allow abolition of habeas corpus and then, when in control of Congress, grant the President vast new surveillance powers without receiving anything in exchange, it is inescapably clear that there are no limits on the willingness of Congressional Democrats to enable the President's worst excesses. If this NYT story is accurate and they really do intend to provide this retroactive immunity, their joint responsibility for most of the excesses of the Bush administration will be virtually complete.
UPDATE: Making the White House's demand for retroactive immunity all the more outrageous is that it is all based on the alleged judgment of Mike McConnell that such immunity is Vital to National Security. Yet McConnell, aside from having proven himself to be entirely untrustworthy in the standard Bush way when it comes to such claims, is the last person who ought to be listened to when it comes to the telecom debate. As much as any other single American, McConnell has extensive private sector connections with the very telecommunication companies for which he is now demanding immunity.
Indeed, McConnell's ties to the very companies that would most benefit from immunity are so deep and numerous that it really rises to the level of conflict of interest for him to demand -- on national security grounds, no less -- that they be granted full immunity from liability for past illegal acts. He is, in essence, demanding immunity for vast numbers of his former partners, clients, associates and scores of business interests in which he had, if not still has, a substantial stake. That Democrats would grant immunity based on his demands for it makes the whole spectacle all the more repugnant.
-Glenn Greenwald
© 2007 Salon.com
35 Comments so far
Show AllThe End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
The ten steps
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy (usually a real enemy, not an invented one).
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Declare all dissent to be treason.
10. Suspend the rule of law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_America:_A_Letter_of_Warning_to_a_Young_Patriot
scooter libby, the telecoms, and blackwater.
bush can't seem to protect the country, but his friends - you bet.
your country makes me sick.
what have you become?
a twenty percent dyslexic ass against whom no one acts.
liars, murderers and pussies.
welcome to the united states.
soon to be mexico north.
To steal a line from some movie I saw recently.
More of the American people believe that Elvis is still alive than believe that the Congress led by the Democrats is doing a good job.
"As promised in my previous post, Senator Amy Klobuchar's letter:"
I should retrieve the copy of the email from my freshman Dissemblercrat congressman when I contacted the office about the urgency of impeachment. It was written in the same bloody dismissive lord-of-the-manner tone -- "Why, you poor benighted peasant, don't you realize that we are people of principle and have concerns that you fail to account for."
"Specifically, almost immediately after the Democrats enacted the new FISA, the Bush White House and DNI Mike McConnell began demanding that Congress quickly go further by providing retroactive immunity to telecom companies who participated in warrantless eavesdropping by shielding them from the consequences of having broken the law."
Not only should the telecoms be prosecuted for breaking the law but Bush should be impeached. Fat chance with Madam Pelosimpeachmentisoffthetable as Speaker of the House
The good news though is that according to the latest poll, the Democratically controlled Congress approval ratings are at 11%
2008 may yet turn out to be an interesting election year if people will vote for what they believe in rather than settling for the lesser of two evils.
Want a revolution? Vote third party in 2008. Third parties can win if the nine out of every ten voters that are mad at the Repubs and Dems votes the way they feel.
Lobo Gris
What angers me most--and I voted straight ticket Democrat last fall--is the two faced lies of these Democrat charlatans, these traitors, and the mewling infants who still make up their voter base.
The Kerry 'demonstrator tazing' referenced above is a perfect example. It is easy to recognize the blogging of brain-dead Democratic party flacks by listening to their childish denials and backing of authoritarianism. They have betrayed their birthright.
As promised in my previous post, Senator Amy Klobuchar's letter:
"Thank you for contacting me concerning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.
You should first know that the FISA bill which passed both the House and Senate a few weeks ago is a temporary measure -- an interim fix extending for the next six months. I would have preferred the version offered by Senator Carl Levin, which I voted for. Unfortunately, that version did not pass, and I voted for the extension on a temporary basis only, because I couldn't allow there to be a gap in our intelligence gathering activity - our safety depends on our ability to continue tracking terrorist networks.
Please know that I will actively work during this temporary six month extension to ensure any permanent FISA extension strikes the right balance between protecting our safety and protecting our civil rights.
The resignation of Attorney General Gonzales is the first step in achieving that balance, and I hope that his departure lifts the cloud that has lingered over the Justice Department. He leaves a legacy of justice tarnished. I was among the first to call for his resignation, and I am hopeful that a new Attorney General will be a more independent voice for the people and uphold the principles of law and justice in this country.
Thank you again for your input, and please don't hesitate to contact me again regarding this or any other issue.
Sincerely,
Amy Klobuchar
United States Senator"
Just watch Kerry capitulate to the campus cops when they abuse the young student. Folks this is truly scary.
They like their (both repub and demo) hold on power - and by god they are not going to let it go.
We need to start doing what the Black Panthers did - follow the cops around in large groups to insure they do no violate people and their rights. Perhaps after a while they will get the point and begin acting with some respect for the basic human rights - we don't even have to get into the Constitution. That is just a piece a paper now.
My problem is with the word "capitulations". That word assumes that the Democrats oppose this, then surrender.
The truth is that the Democrats have always supported these policies. Forget what they say, look at how they vote in crunch time. How many Democrats opposed the Patriot Act? The Democratic leadership in Congress always supports these bills and helps to quide them through. For later bills, its harder to look at the votes, because once the leadership has enough to ensure passage, they'll turn other free to vote NO to give the illusion that there's opposition.
This is not something the Democrats oppose and then surrender to accept. Its something that's been a basic factor of Democratic policy for at least 15 years now. Go look at the 'anti-terror' bills that Clinton passed and signed.
If you want opposition to this, you'd better start kicking both Democrats and Republicans out of the Congress.
The Dims don't plan capitulation, they flow with the political opportunism of the moment. The Repugs are smart enough to continually set them up for this knowing what unprincipled opportunists they are.
If we go to the streets to protest peacefully, regardless of our numbers, we will be ignored, imprisoned or killed.
If we take to the streets in violent protest, regardless of our numbers, we will be ignored, imprisoned or killed.
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish the checks and balances in the Constitution.
KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary recently reprimanded for gross overcharging in its military contracts in Iraq, won a $385 million contract to build detention centers.
What part of this don't we understand?
I have signed too many petitions to our "representatives." I have made too many phone calls. I have attended too many "rallies." They all were completely meaningless, made no difference, were completely ignored.
Mine may be a failed effort in the end but at least I will try to
DO SOMETHING! Will you help me? http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/unsanam2
My advice is very simple: CLEAR OUT WHILE YOU CAN
Those folks inside the beltway don't care about the rest of us. They're actually very honest politicians - just like George. Once bought, they stay bought.
Why should retroactive immunity for a criminal act come as a surprise?
The administration advocating it, after all, 'won' their first term in office by the vote of the supreme court, who apparently forgot that the supreme vote, belonged to the people.
And now we have a group of government sponsored, and taxpayer financed mercenaries, being accused of killing twenty, I believe that is the latest reported number, unarmed Iraqis.
And the press reports that the mercenaries, if an investigation resulted in the suspects being indictable, would be immune from either US Military prosecution, or, Iraqi government prosecution.
In short, the people guarding US diplomats are 'outside' the law. Way to go Condi! Way to go W.!, Way to go America!
To whoever said: 'it's got to get worse before it gets better,' are we there yet?
Klobuchar was a product of Yale & U Chicago law school.
When's the last terrorist going to be caught and brought to justice? And how would you even know? Someone could always claim there's another terrorist hiding under some new, unturned, rock.
So what's the theoretical end that Klobuchar sees? We're on an algorithm which is known as a bootstrapped process, continuous loop, etc. There is no logical endpoint. What's the theoretical end point? The set of conditions which, even theoretically speaking, would qualify as sufficient to privacy? It's been a one-way street. Not even habeas corpus has been restored.
"t lays bare the real role of the Democratic Party in US politics. Their essential function is deceiving the public by posing as the Republicans' "opposition," while in actual fact, collaborating as the R's full partners."
"ith the bolting of the racist Dixiecrats, and former Democrats like Reagan, some sort of mythology was created that they were the party of liberalism. Nevermind that LBJ probably got us into 'Nam, and nevermind that they handed over huge authority both the King George I and King George II."
See "One Brief Shining Moment" on the 1972 campaign of George McGovern -- the Democratic establishment did everything in their power to destroy his candidacy in the primaries.
Ever since Henry Wallace was yanked from the 1944 ticket in favor of Truman, the game has been the same -- "You don't want the REPUBLICANS, do you?"
The New Deal was a temporary legacy from FDR, the permanent legacy is the Pentagon State, with its police precursor in the FBI and its skullduggery-twin, the CIA.
I don't want to "return to the country we knew" -- we need to extract the Bill of Rights from the ever-more murderous framework to which it was originally tacked on, and build truly free institutions on the grave of this militarist, murderous, venomous parasite which is destroying the globe.
Amy Klobuchar insulted every progressive Minnesotan when she stated that she only voted for increased surveillance because it was a temporary measure. This measure didn't make us safer, and didn't make the troops safer. Klobuchar's was a classic cowardly move that even the presidential candidates didn't stoop to. In six months, Bush will return to the Congress claiming that national security needs permanent surveillance. Klobuchar will then be between a rock and a hard place--and will forever be considered a Bush stooge by progressive Minnesotans.
The time has come. You know it, I know, the world knows it. Civil war will happen here, The revolution will be in our lifetime. And who side will we choose?
These are the moments that our people will talk about in books after our bones have long been buried in the sands of time.
These will be the moments in which we set ourselves apart from the sheep, and we stand. We stand for what is rightfully ours.
The war has begun, the trumpets have been blown.
We are brothers and sisters!!
This is our fight. There is only, us and the enemey.
There is no black, white, red, or yellow.
There are only the freemen and freewomen.
And then there are the oppressors.
US and them. There lives and ours.
We are one unit, we are one people. Feed your brother and your brother will feed you.
Starve for your brother and he will do the same.
Give drink to your brother, and he will quench your thirst.
Fight not amongest ourselves, but let us unite in what will be the defining moments of our lives.
There is no rich or poor. Only us and them.
No strong men and weak men. Only us and them.
Turn the other cheek for your brother but not for the enemy.
Turn the other cheek for your sister but not for the enemy.
I ask you not, as a leader of men, but as a brother in arms, a brother in spirit, a brother in pain. A brother in sacrifice and a brother to those that wish to remain free.
I ask you in this time of our greatest need for cohesiveness and bonds built with one goal.
And that goal is maintaining freedom.
Providing Freedom for our brothers and sisters. Maintaining what was given to us by those that died.
And what is being taken away from us by those that kill.
We are blind, but only have to open our eyes to see what we have been missing.
We are deaf and mute, but only need to focus our minds to hear the call, and open our mouths to speak the words that will save us from our selves.
We are not going to take it any more.
Say it to yourself, when you lay your head on your pillow.
Say it to yourself when you wake.
Say it to those you love.
Say it to those you hate.
For it is only us and them.
Say that you will not let your brothers starve alone, say you will not let your brothers go with out drink alone.
We are one people, we are one movement.
We are the revolution.
~Future~
Little Brother: I prefer to call it a "good crook/bad crook" routine.
RichM: I hear you. I'm still trying to figure out what sort of personality type is willing to submit his entire public life to play-acting charade. Talk the Dim talk, but walk the Rethug walk. They're pretty easy to see through.
In the end it doesn't matter anyway. The Republican Party was anti-slavery and anti-prohibition. With the bolting of the racist Dixiecrats, and former Democrats like Reagan, some sort of mythology was created that they were the party of liberalism. Nevermind that LBJ probably got us into 'Nam, and nevermind that they handed over huge authority both the King George I and King George II.
The Dems who are Crypto-Republicans (probably the great majority of any significant status) can be masters at persuasion, letting us down easily, soothing the Rethug pill.
GG asks the question - why have the Dems gone loyalbushie - but only implies the answer. Because either they've been paid/threatened to go along, or because they're drooling about getting their hands on that tasty, wholly unaccountable Loonitary Decider "power" in 08, which would also explain why they're determined to allow more soldiers to die as long as they can get away with it - makes it easier to keep the "war" in "war" powers, see. Don't want that little trump card to slip away before the crown is passed...
On a side note:
"...and thus actively enabled the abolition of habeas corpus along with the other abuses that Act legalized."
The new radio spots for USA Freedom Corp open with a "Teacher" teaching her class how to spell "habeas corpus." The audience never learns whether she goes on to actually teach them what it means and why it is no longer operational.
Every time ya hear it, ya feel like the Loonitary Decider is flipping you the bird directly...
"When's the last terrorist going to be caught and brought to justice? And how would you even know? Someone could always claim there's another terrorist hiding under some new, unturned, rock"
A bit like "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues" -- if you can't find them, that shows just how omnipresent they are. "Absence of evidence," spake the Rumsfeld, "is not evidence of absence." The only safe course is the one recommended by Kurtz at the end of "Heart of Darkness", and we can be sure that this is the plan, not only of the Bush Crime family, but the Clintonite Capos as well.
What does the list of McConnell's retirement stock options look like?
Brings to mind that frog in slowly boiling water... little by little, as foul becomes fair and fair becomes foul, as illegalities become accepted policies of a flawed and dangerous millitaristic state, as dissent is less and less tolerated, what America might have been, purported to be, slowly disappears into this modern version of a work camp, a society split between the few elite haves and the rest, fed poor "food" (faux filler), at a loss to have any rights that would protect them in the face of immoral corporate profits, and no means to justice. But this is America to many, a brand name, and it's familiar and many people hate change... all this and more as the water boils.
I love this retroactive immunity stuff. May I rob a convenience store and have the legislature give me retroactive immunity? If this remedy is available for the powerful and well-connected (a pun in the case of telecoms), it should be available for all.
Go to http://www.ap.org/ and link to "Bush Calls for Expansion of Spy Law". It seems it's now to be called the Protect America Act, or more appropriately (as surmised by the ACLU), "The Police America Act".
Democracy in the USA right now is in a similar condition to Norman Bates's mother - a corpse dressed up and sat in a rocking chair in the basement, while a madman runs the family business upstairs.
Here's a point from this fine article that deserves a second look: "(W)hat were (originally) the illegal policies of the Bush administration have become lawful as the result of a Congress which does nothing when executive lawbreaking is revealed except enact legislation to legalize the behavior."
Just roll that around in your mind for a moment, & reflect on its implications. It lays bare the real role of the Democratic Party in US politics. Their essential function is deceiving the public by posing as the Republicans' "opposition," while in actual fact, collaborating as the R's full partners.
Dem Party loyalists get very offended when told that there's "no difference" between their party & the Republicans. There is in fact an important difference: the R's are the overt warmongers, torture advocates, & looters of the public Treasury. The D's, meanwhile, are just the Republicans' strategically-placed undercover agents; their legitimizers. It turns out that it's far more effective, in terms of political theater, to have an "opposition" that's secretly on your side, than it is having them as full-fledged members of your own party.
Amy Klobuchar is my Senator. I wrote to her after the first vote. Although it took her a while, she did write back via e-mail, and it did sound authentic. I'd be happy to provide the direct quote later today, but here's the gist of her reply.
She said she felt the Senate could not leave our country unprotected in such critical times, so she voted Yea. She assured me the vote represented only a temporary reauthorization, and that she was looking into the issue in depth. She assured me she would take steps to protect my privacy and that of all Americans. We'll see, won't we?
More later.
The Democrat/Republican pas de deux is the old Good Cop/Bad Cop routine, with We the People being whipsawed in the middle.
Maybe only a technicality, but why is it that when Republicans do this it's considered in their nature, consistent with the ideology they claim ownership of, etc. -- but when Democrats do it, it's "capitulation". That is, someone else's idea. As if they're not self-determined or something.
Co-option and collaboration are more accurate terms.
The Democratic "leadership" has clearly decided not to risk being the object of Rovian name-calling by standing up to Bush's outrageous plans. They apparently fear that doing so may hurt their chances in the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, more of our young people die every week in Iraq and this administration becomes increasingly emboldened in its fascistic tendencies.
jj
Mr. Greenwald - Every word you write is true, but until ordinary citizens realize what's happening and that it's a bad thing, it's going to keep happening. People seem very willing to give up these protections because these moves are sold as fighting terrorism. And it's fine to criticize the Democrats, but where are the Republican voices of conscience; there aren't any.
TO THE DEMS
I have been meaning to write something like this for awhile because of your feckless responses and kowtowing to a president who is out to destroy this country. Why? Because you are cynical and political to an extreme. It is either that or you want to have all the stuff that is on the books now plus a war that you think will help you and without the blame. This is neither humanistic or morally defendable. Petraeus got what he deserves and cutting off funds for this war is the way to go because when it comes to priorities for this occupation it is contractors first and troops last. You can see this from any facts that you look at. So who cares for the troops? Some of you have been doing a lot of talking but nobody has thrown a rock at this glass house of an administration. Leave it to the people thru MoveOn.Org to do the heavy lifting for what you are supposed to be doing. You will not get my vote because you are no better than the repubs. Is there any difference in dictators, if one is a dem. or a repub? The way that you are acting you just want the whole pie for yourselves and forget the people again. I'm 71 and cant help but wonder what of the younger people? Because of your feckless nature it is a bleak future for them. Tony
"[The] liberty of speaking and writing... guards our other liberties." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Philadelphia Democratic Republicans, 1808.
Immediately after the senate vote early last August on FISA, I e-mailed the democratic senator (partial letter shown below) in my state that voted "yes" to this preposterous legislation. I never received a response, so this morning I called Senator Webb's local office to attempt to find out why I wasn't granted the courtesy of a response, and more importantly, why the senator voted in-line with the Republican minority. As expected, I was told that "this office" doesn't handle inquiries of this type, and that I should call the Washington DC office and dial 2 for a "live person" (which I did, but of course, received nothing but a busy signal).
"Dear Senator Webb:
I must tell you that I'm extremely disappointed in your recent "yes" vote to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, essentially allowing the U.S. Government to circumvent the warrant procedure.
As previously written before signed into law this past Sunday, the former law already gave U.S. agencies broad leeway to monitor the communications of foreign terrorism suspects, but the 30-year-old statute required a warrant to monitor calls intercepted in the United States, regardless of where the calls began or ended. Because of this ill-conceived legislation, a court-approved warrant will not be needed. Now, the door has opened even wider to the many ways the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens."
As I explained in my last paragraph to the senator, I was disappointed in his decision and ill-conceived action. It was thought that the election of this man would bring a needed change to the senatorial voting record in this state. Sadly, it appears I was wrong.
Again, sowhat's new?
Ask AMy Klobuchar in MN, the recently elected "progressive Dem". She too voted for the FISA rule.
Dems = Bush enablers.