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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."
What, you don't want us to chop off your head and cut your body into little pieces?
Let's compromise: we'll just cut off your head.
And so it goes, on and on...
Don't you wish the rest of congress could grow a spine?
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
They used filters and monitors and logging to spy on all traffic passing through key peering nodes on the say-so of the white house and the intelligence agencies even though such spying was illegal at the time it happened. I say we should hang AT&T, Verizon and the others out to dry for what they did. If it means they make less profit this year, tough, its their own fault for following the directions of G.W.Bush and his cronies instead of following the law (and demanding warrants for the spying)
Don't look at this as a permanent victory either guys- the pressure needs to be kept up on all of the members of the Senate, especially those that may be on the fence (the other spineless democrats). Calls and emails made a difference today- Orrin Hatch was livid about "the blogs" spreading misinformation, and Reid obviously heard by the end of the day that his constituents were not happy that he was going to try and ram this bill through. When this comes back up in January, be heard. And better yet, contact your senator between now and then and let them know you won't accept retroactive immunity.
Democrats want immunity for big business. Republicans want big government.
Are the parties flip-flopping again or are they finally coming into parity with the fact that they're just one big party with two masks so the people get a sense they they're getting a change every 4 or 8 years?
The threat of a filibuster shouldn't have even been necessary if the government was really for the people by the people.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
It was quite refreshing to listen to Dodd describe in fair detail the crap that's been going on:
The installation of systems poorly suited to specific taps but ideally suited to dragnet surveillance. In major fiber exchanges that aren't where the main foreign fiber trunks or satellite dishes are (i.e. the San Fransisco case that started it). And now we learn that Qwest balked because they wanted to put a dragnet on a switch center that handled almost entirely local traffic.
Then Orrin "destroy their computers" Hatch started speaking. About how the American government didn't do {the bombings in Beruit, the Bali nightclub bombing, the bombings in Kenya, the London tube bombings, the Madrid train bombings, and (of course) 9/11}, the Turrists did. And I'm sitting here trying hard not to scream "And how would dragnet surveillance of domestic calls have stopped a single damn one of those things!?!?"
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
In the Constitution, See Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3:
Which means no retroactive anything is legal. I'm amazed that the media continues to overlook this critical bit.
On second thought, no I'm not. There can be no compromise on this. The telcos colluded with Bushco to perform illegal acts, and granting them immunity after the fact is not allowed.
Ron Paul also wants to pull out of the UN, remove the constitutionally protected women's right to choose, remove public education and has a number of other insane ideas of how government should be runned. I don't like wireless wiretapping or our foreign policy much, but there more important issues out there which Paul loses most voters including this one on.
Yes, and a pine is not a plant - it's a tree.
Representative Republic is _a_ _form_ _of_ _democracy_.
Let's see...
He seems to like the Thought Crime concept. Rather than merely punishing people for bad actions, he supports the idea that we should try to guess if a criminal might hate his victim. Extra years in prison for Thought Crime makes sense to him.
He's OK with the government taking people's legally owned firearms during an emergency or major disaster. (as in Katrina... where the cops were followed by thugs preying on the now-unarmed residents) Got a disaster? Time to steal from the people!
He somehow thinks that firearm suppliers should be held liable for the actions of firearm users. If this seems sane to you, consider applying it to computers or vehicles. (on the plus side, that kind of liability would put Microsoft out of business and solve all our traffic problems)
He likes the PATRIOT act. Oh dear...
He's a CAN SPAM kind of guy.
He's OK with shovelling money to sugarcane growers.
If you like Dodd's move, then don't just contact his office and express support, vote for him in the Democratic primaries.
Derive Politics
So really, what's at stake here is not actually ending the practice of wiretaps, its about a bunch of lawyers wanting to cash in and sue the people that did it.
Ah ha ha ah ha. No. It's about massive, serial lawbreaking and attempts to sweep it under the rug. And who gives a shit if it ends up in the hands of lawyers! Give it to Britney Spears, burn it, open a mime school - the point is that it's out of the hands of those who conspired to violate our Constitutional rights.
One of the few industries we have left in the USA not destroyed by litigation, and now, that's all going down the shitter to.
AT&T's market cap is 425 BILLION DOLLARS Yes, poor beleaguered AT&T REALLY needs legal protection here.
What's even more amazing, at the end of the day, is that Democrats will ultimately create a legal framework that says a corporation doesn't actually even have to listen to the government at all
When you're done drinking the Kool-Aid, try reading up on the Nuremberg trials.
The problem is that democracy sucks. Democracy leads to countless evils. Slavery in the US was democracy in action, as were Jim Crow Laws. The South splitting from the US was democracy in action. Hitler rising to power was democracy in action. There is nothing "good" about democracy other than it leaves a way to kick someone who is utterly incompetent out of power. Democracy is less likely to cause brutal oppression than a dictatorship due to the electorate having the ability to remove the government, but it is by no means a guarantee.
The US constitution, something that is generally revered as being as a model constitution is an example of an UNDEMOCRATIC document. The constitution sets in place limits that a democratically elected government must follow, irregardless of what the will of the people is. It sets in place a method of changing the constitution that demands far more than a "democratic" majority vote. The Supreme Court which upholds the constitution is an example of an undemocratic institution. In fact, I would say the things I like best about the American part are its undemocratic parts, not the democratically elected pieces of it.
So, is a filibuster an example of an anti-democratic purpose? Hell yes, and I love it! The best thing about the American system is the fact that a simple majority can't impose its will upon the minority. In order to get even the simplest of things done, you need a majority of 60%. To get truly earth shattering done (like changing the constitution), you need a super majority well over 2/3's. This is a good thing. This is one of the reasons why despite Europe being far more liberal than the US, the US still has much strong free speech laws. It isn't because Americans are hippies, it is because the non-democratic aspects of the American government make it virtually impossible to pass anti-free speech legislation, and even when it is passed, it promptly gets struck down.
I say hurray for the non-democratic institutions. I think we need MORE of them. This world needs more liberal (liberal as in liberty, not leftist) institutions and less democracy.
Its a noun, which means: We are a democratic republic. We *are* a democracy, even though we use representation. We are a republic, even though the supreme power is vested in the people.
And that is the one big problem I have with Ron Paul. The huge gigantic glaring hypocrisy when he calls for a restoration of privacy rights in this country under the 4th ammendment and yet still wants to prevent women from having an abortion. Sorry, if he is as principled as he likes to hang himself out as he would be for abortions as well. But no, he still wants the government to dictate what the woman can do with her own body. How you can be against the drug war and for abortion is beyond me as they are one in the same: government regulation of what you do with your body in the privacy of your own home or in the doctor's office.
Ron Paul is a hippocrite. Yes not nearly as big as some other politicians, but a hippocrite none the less. If Paul fixed this one single thing I believe that he would win this election as A LOT of people on the left cite his abortion stance, and the hippocrisy that comes with it, as the main reason they will not support him.
But that would still be predicated on a fetus being a "person", which is hotly debated.
There are many definitions of personhood that a fetus fails, as well as many which it will pass.
It isn't as clear a topic as many folks represent it to be, which is a good reason to keep regulations regarding it down at the state level... Part of the functions of a state is to be "experiments" in law for the rest... each can try their own ideas out, and every one can see how things work out.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
While getting every oath breaking (protect the Constitution) coward out of office would be nice, it's not very practical. But that's okay - a few primaries can have great effect. After Lieberman was successfully primaried, the Dems finally pulled their outs out of their ass when it came to criticizing the occupation of Iraq. A few more and the Dems might finally pull their heads out of their asses on ending the war in Iraq and block any legislation that does not have a hard withdrawal date. Jane Harman for example has improved considerably just at the threat of being primaried.
Republicans fear their base. Too many Democrats deliberately vote against theirs, and with the most unpopular president in history. This is because they think they have nothing to fear from the left or the center, only the right - so they move to the right. Oh, and they crave approval from the Joke Line beltway pundits. They need to learn that is not the case.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
One point is that the Supreme Court has not ruled on the Warrantless Wiretapping program.
//Btw, I didn't read your link because I couldn't get to it through the corporate firewall here.
Second point, I don't see how this falls under Article II of the Constitution unless you are saying that it's part of the Presidents war powers. If it is part of his war powers then we actually need a declaration of war. This crap that has been pulled the last 60 years of getting us into "conflicts that aren't wars" is bullshit and an end run around the Constitution.
Last point, while I don't like the idea of wiretapping other people outside of the US (where all parties are outside the US). I don't see anyway for us to stop it Constitutionally, so it would be allowed.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.