Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.