FISA/Retroactive Amnesty Update

[solarbird]

If you haven't read this post and called, emailed and/or faxed these people, for the love of the gods, now is the time. Don't wait. Tomorrow is too late. I know it's Sunday; Senator Reid is smart and is aware of how little people pay attention over the weekend. This is intentional.

If you have, or if you haven't but have just gone back to remind yourself what this is about, here're some updates and additional action items.

Senator Dodd is suspending his Presidential campaign to head east and filibuster. He's going to take the floor and not yield it - this is the old-school real thing. However, other Senators can take the floor and spend up to 20 minutes asking a very, very long question. So far, only two (2) other Senators have specifically prepared to do so; Senators Feingold and Kennedy. Senator Dodd is looking for statements from citizen supporters to read, and questions for them to ask. During these 20-minute question periods, Senator Dodd does not have to be on the floor; these are his bathroom breaks, basically, and are very important. If you have anything, comment on the thread linked to above with your suggestions.

Senators Clinton and Obama have not, as yet, cancelled any of their appearances tomorrow, nor have I found any comment by either campaign on Mr. Dodd's filibuster - that they stated they would support. Senator Biden has similarly not indicated any plans to go east, but according to third parties, his schedule tomorrow is unclear. We'll see.

In related news, the New York Times, unreliable though they are, report that the history of telecom direct and explicit violation of the law in providing domestic surveillance goes back before 2001, tho' it is of course dramatically wider and deeper post-2001. They reference testimony from former telecom employees and others discussion the widespread purely domestic warrantless illegal surveillance of Americans with full - and separately illegal - telecom support.

Let me restate: every bit of this was explicitly, specifically, and entirely illegal. But since the co-opted Justice Department refuses to investigate (and, in fact, is actively interfering with Congressional investigations into the destruction of torture evidence), and Congress refuses to do anything except try to cover it up (with the exceptions at this point of Senators Dodd, Feingold, and Kennedy), private lawsuits on the basis of this violation of law are the only investigative path remaining.

And this is Congress, Democrats and Republicans, working together, to close down that investigative channel and cover it up so that massive spying on Americans may be continued indefinitely, law and democracy be damned. And make no mistake: this is happening because the Democratic leadership wants it to happen just as much as the Republicans do. Period. End of story.

Get on those faxes (best, reportedly), email contact forms, and voice lines. Go. Now.

ETA: My letter to Senators Cantwell and Murray, below the cut. Please feel free to borrow from it, but do not copy it exactly.

---

Dear Senator -

Providing retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies which separately, specifically, and systematically broke the law for several years is just plain wrong. Doing it to shut down the only remaining functional investigative path to investigate the domestic spying agenda of the Bush administration is insane.

Despite this, Senate Majority Leader Reid continues forward on this lunatic path, with the support of the Democratic leadership.

What does the GOP have on them? It must be something good.

Please support Senator Dodd's filibuster on Monday. Senators Feingold and Kennedy are organising 20-minute question slots to help Senator Dodd with bathroom and meal breaks. Go sign up for a slot, and be there. Nothing less counts.


Sincerely,


solarbird

Comments

[mathmuffin.livejournal.com]

Do you have a link to the actual wording of the FISA-changing bill that Senator Reid supports? I am searching for it myself, but I am not practiced at finding Senate bills via the Internet.

Retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies is far beyond what the NSA itself asked for. To quote the NSA's press release (http://www.nsa.gov/releases/doj_dni_press_release.pdf) of April 2007:

The country's communications providers are important partners in the ability of the United States Government to protect our national security. The proposed legislation includes needed authority both to protect those carriers when they do comply with lawful requests under FISA, and to enable providers to cooperate with authorized intelligence activities.

Note the word "lawful" above. There are more sensible methods of protecting someone who cooperates with a secret yet lawful request than all-out blanket immunity.

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

And this is Congress, Democrats and Republicans, working together, to close down that investigative channel and cover it up so that massive spying on Americans may be continued indefinitely, law and democracy be damned.

You realize, of course, that if all this were taking place in the private sector, everyone involved would be investigated for collusion, and likely as not someone would serve time for it.

And no, unfortunately Democrats do not have the average citizen's interest in mind any more than do Republicans; our two-party political inbreeding, coupled with the complete Congressional sale to gigantic media interests, serves only to blur the lines (except for the ones in the crossfire aimed at We, the People).

Senators and Congressional Representatives should be paid minimum wage and have a limit of two terms. Period. We're dealing with people who have absolutely no grasp on how the average middle-to-lower income person lives, and when they do deign to go back to their district they are not usually found in the less-comfortable environs within their districts.

Sorry for the obtuse rant; Congress rankles me.

[solarbird]

I think the latest version of the bill is here, it's S.2248.RS, as amended (several times - huge swaths are struck out and replaced) and you're looking in part for Section 702, subsection H, sub-subsection 3:

(3) RELEASE FROM LIABILITY- Notwithstanding any other law, no cause of action shall lie in any court against any electronic communication service provider for providing any information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with a directive issued pursuant to paragraph (1).

Historically, when an order is illegal on its face, providers have had the legal duty to refuse; this bill makes it their legal duty to obey, including providing facilities and all requested support (see (1)), and holds them immune from any legal remedy. However, this section does not specifically deal with retroactivity.

Another fun thing in Section 702 is that it authorises pre-warrant wiretapping and data collecting, gives you a lot of time before you get FISA court approval, and the only penalty for losing in FISA court is that you have to stop (or try again with a "corrected" request) within 30 days. If you're rewriting it, you get to keep going. I even consider the FISA court part to be a joke and was protesting it in the late 1990s. But we're well past that now, and I'm mostly more worried about the immunity part at this point.

[solarbird]

You realize, of course, that if all this were taking place in the private sector, everyone involved would be investigated for collusion, and likely as not someone would serve time for it.
This is taking place in the private sector. The telecommunications industry is hip-deep in this - they get paid, after all, at "prevailing rate," which means consultancy rates - and they're just trying to get blanket legal immunity for any actions on top of it.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

It's really scary that the FISA court is now seen as the option for due process, when as you mention it was actually a serious degradation of due process when it was introduced.

I remember that a lot of the measures in the various recent FISA bills as well as parts of the PATRIOT act were originally introduced during the Clinton administration, with the support of President Clinton. It's comforting (for liberals and other anti-conservatives anyway) to think of these as Bush administration innovations, but the reality is that this has crossed parties for a long time. The same can be said for pre-emptive war and a lot of the idiocy in Iraq and Afghanistan, to which Clinton contributed.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

The Bush administration is the private sector. It's a government for the purposes of private looting, at the expense of the public. It's corporatism, or fascism without most of the thuggery.

[wrog]

quick note: Edwards is not currently a Senator, i.e., he may currently hold the title as a courtesy or whatever it is they do for ex-senators, but it doesn't give him any special rights on the senate floor. If he went back, the only thing he'd be able to do is stand in the visitor's gallery.

On the other hand, nothing prevents him saying to HRC & BO, "So if you guys fly back east, I'll go with you and lay off campaigning for a bit, because this is important"

[solarbird]

Yes. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on that; I am aware, and my letter to him was not the same as the ones to Clinton, Biden, and Obama.

I think he could do more than stand in the visitor's gallery. I think he could jawbone some Democrats still in office. But I could be wrong about that. I was recruiting him as a lobbyist, basically.

oh wait

[solarbird]

I SEE WHAT I DID THER

(I typed "Edwards" where I meant "Biden." Edited to correct.)

[solarbird]

I know! The FISA court is pretty much just a sham in terms of real protections. And even that sham was too much, apparently, for the Chief Executive.

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure the thuggery is that far away.

[mathmuffin.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link. I don't like the phrasing in the bill. Section 202, part a.1.A protects actions from September 11, 2001 to January 17, 2007. That looks ex post facto to me, but I am not a lawyer.

[solarbird]

Oh, there it is. Thanks for the pointer.

As for ex post facto - oh, it absolutely is. But it's generally been held that prohibitions against retroactive law don't apply for relief against punitive action - at least, by government. Now, in the case of the lawsuits, I would argue that this is providing relief for one private party from another private party and therefore the ban against retroactive law still applies, but I don't think I'd get anywhere with that.