Briefly, on FISA

[solarbird]

Oh, in other news, the FISA fight continues; the cloture vote the GOP tried to push forward early - which Senate Majority Leader Reid took as a personal insult - failed, primarily because of the insult to the Senator. That was enough to prevent cloture, so the fight will continue probably next week. To quote Glenn again:

In essence, the reason Senate Democrats were able to successfully filibuster today is not because they oppose the Cheney/Rockefeller Senate Intelligence Committee bill. It's not because they stood firm against telecom immunity or warrantless eavesdropping. Quite the contrary, more than enough Senate Democrats were and still are prepared to vote for that bill in order to ensure passage (as they demonstrated on Thursday when 12 of them, in essence, voted for that bill).

The only reason Democrats were able to hold their caucus together today to filibuster is because The Senators were offended that their inalienable Senatorial Right to vote on amendments was deprived by the GOP's premature Cloture Motion. The one (and only) "principle" that can really inspire many of these Senators to take a stand is the protection of their Senatorial prerogatives. Many of them don't actually have any beliefs other than that.

Reward lawbreaking with immunity? Fine. Give the President new warrantless eavesdropping powers? No problem. Abolish habeas corpus and legalize torture? Sure. Deprive a Senator of the Right to vote on an amendment before cloture? Unacceptable!

I've written things like that before (as many of you know) and I could probably whip something up again, but you've heard it already, and it's easier at this point to quote someone else, when they're right.

Still, I really have to wonder whether it matters. The chief executive, Mr. Bush, has declared himself above the law time and time again, and has gotten away with it every time. Except for immunity for the telcos, I don't see this being hugely different; the domestic warrantless spying will go on anyway, I think. Still, if immunity can be kept off the books, at least it might have a chance of being documented.

Comments

[mathmuffin.livejournal.com]

You pondered, "Still, I really have to wonder whether it matters." The President doesn't have the level of control that he pretends he has. FISA law gets converted into FISA regulations that control the bureaucracy. It doesn't matter what the President wants, the middle managers follow the regulations. The president's control over the bureaucracy is that he can send smart lawyers from the Attorney General's office to argue with each agency's lawyers. When the law or the situation is ambiguous, the smart, powerful lawyers will win. When the law is clear, the law will win.

I am afraid I have more grist for your mill. I was catching up on reading Bruce Schneier's blog (http://www.schneier.com/blog/) and he had written a recent article (http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/01/securitymatters_0124) at Wired.com, which he repeated (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/security_vs_pri.html) in his blog. He saw major elements of worry in a recent New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/01/21/080121fa_fact_wright) about which he says:

In a Jan. 21 New Yorker article, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell discusses a proposed plan to monitor all -- that's right, all -- internet communications for security purposes, an idea so extreme that the word "Orwellian" feels too mild.

[solarbird]

Yeah, I posted about that planned programme here, tho' at the time it wasn't yet on the New Yorker website - I could only link to Raw Story. We live in a pervasive, endemic surveillance society now.