Dodd's Filibuster Threat Stalls Wiretap Bill

otakuj462 sends in an important followup to this morning's story on telecom immunity legislation. "Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary victory today after his threats of a filibuster forced Democratic leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance... [T]he threat of Dodd's filibuster... persuaded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to table the act until January. A compromise on the immunity will ostensibly be worked out in the interim period."

Comments

Chris Dodd's voting record.

[palegray.net]

You can find Chris Dodd's voting record on this site. I live in CT, by thw way.

Show Apprectiation

[Telepathetic Man]

If you like Dodd's move, be sure to contact his office and express your support. Let him know he is doing the right thing.

Re:DoS against Democracy

[erroneus]

To be clear, the US isn't a Democracy. It's a Republic. That means once the people are in office, they can do pretty much what they want regardless of what 'the people' want. So after the public election, it's all up to the elected as to what happens next. There is no ability for 'the people' to vote for an individual law or any such thing.

Now that said, a filibuster is a kind of interruption to the flow of legislative activity. But it's sometimes necessary since there are times when majorities take advantage of minorities in the process. The filibuster helps to ensure that the minority is heard even when the majority would rather not listen to them. I have watched some pretty atrocious stuff happening on C-SPAN where the majority was simply ignoring proper procedure during legislative activities giving no voice at all to the minority side or their interests. When the gang or the mob is in control, the filibuster ensures that a minority can be heard.

Glenn Greenwald reports on Harry Reid's duplicity

[Scareduck]

Glenn Greenwald had a good report on this today; incredibly, only 10 senators voted against this bill. Reid allowed the bill to proceed despite Dodd's hold (the only one Reid has disallowed). You'd think Reid was bought and paid for by AT&T or something.

Re:Ron Paul won't allow warentless wiretapping

[ravenspear]

Ron Paul also wants to pull out of the UN

While I don't favor this, you would be hard pressed to argue that the UN has had a very productive impact in most of the activities they have undertaken. And even when their stuff has worked, it has usually been with the US doing most of the legwork. The UN is mainly an organization that allows its members to say they support international partnerships, while performing relatively few useful functions of its own.

remove the constitutionally protected women's right to choose

Last time I checked a woman's right to choose was protected by a Supreme Court decision, not the Constitution. Whether or not one supports abortion is another matter, but lets be clear on that.

remove public education

Not a bad idea considering the Constitution provides no basis for the federal government to be involved in education, and our schools are failing anyway. Plus, our students did better comparatively against other nations before the US Dept of Education was instituted.

Re:Immunity is illegal anyway

[worthawholebean]

No - ex post facto applies to criminal law, not civil law. Here are the four types of laws considered "ex post facto" in the U.S., established in Calder v. Bull:

"1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action.
2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed.
3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.
4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender."

Ex post facto laws are only those which punish people who were formerly innocent - not the other way around.

Disclaimer: IANAL

Re:Mod parent up!

[MillionthMonkey]

I'm out of moderator points or I'd give you some. Why the hell is this immunity even being considered by politicians from either party?

For the Democrats (e.g. Dianne Feinstein who can be reached at 202-224-3841), one motive is the obvious one: telecoms contribute to campaigns.

Much more is at stake for the Republicans, since the president broke at least several federal statutes relating to wiretapping. While this is all something that "everybody knows", that has no legal significance and no one bears any meaningful responsibility to do anything about it. But if the EFF lawsuit (among others) doesn't have its legal basis legislated right out from under it, then it will be revealed in a court of law that the president committed federal crimes. The telecom immunity legislation was designed by the executive branch to extend immunity not just to telecoms who broke these laws, but to anyone in the government who asked them to do it (PDF):

[N]o action shall lie or be maintained in any court, and no penalty, sanction, or other form of remedy or relief shall be imposed by any court or any other body, against any person for the alleged provision to an element of the intelligence community of any information (including records or other information pertaining to a customer), facilities, or any other form of assistance, during the period of time beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on the date that is the effective date of this Act, in connection with any alleged classified communications intelligence activity that the Attorney General or a designee of the Attorney General certifies, in a manner consistent with the protection of State secrets, is, was, would be, or would have been intended to protect the United States from a terrorist attack.

Obviously the EFF lawsuit presents a pickle for the Republicans if it is legally shown that Bush was complicit in lawbreaking, and they don't want the lawsuit to proceed further. But this is a problem for the Democrats too. Once it becomes legally evident that Bush broke the law, it becomes incumbent upon them to do something about it, or they are breaking the law with their inaction. Everyone knows Bush is a criminal, but nobody wants to be responsible for knowing. Politics as currently practiced is a fragile thing, home to a glassy web of unspoken agreements and hard-won compromises. A development like this would come stampeding in on all that like a bull in a china shop. This telecom immunity law will make a lot of headaches go away for a lot of people- the telecoms themselves are actually minor players here.

it'd take quite some primarying

[Trepidity]

The committee that wrote the immunity bill had eight democrats on it, of which six voted for it: Rockefeller (WV), Feinstein (CA), Bayh (IN), Mikulski (MD), Nelson (FL), and Whitehouse (RI). Only Feingold (WI) and Wyden (OR) voted against.

In addition, Dodd's first attempt to stall the legislation failed, 76-10. Only 9 other Democrats supported him.

Re:to be fair, not exactly watertight

[jonatha]

The Supreme Court also has a long history of inventing rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution

The idea that "inventing rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution" is somehow beyond the pale is directly contradicted by the plain meaning of the 9th Amendment.