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Democrats Propose Commission To Investigate Spying
metalman writes "Wired has a story on a proposal by House Democrats to 'establish a national commission — similar to the 9/11 Commission... to find out — and publish — what exactly the nation's spies were up to during their five-year warrantless, domestic surveillance program.' The draft bill would also preserve the requirement of court orders and remove 'retroactive immunity for telecom companies.' (We've discussed various government wiretaps, phone companies, and privacy violations before.) But it seems unlikely that such an alternative on phone immunity would pass both the House and Senate, let alone survive a Presidential veto."
How exactly is it that one man, the President, has the power to veto any bill that's passed by Congress? What happens when a bill comes along which could threaten him in some way? Didn't someone think about this before granting veto ability for the Prez?
I don't live in the US so please forgive me if there's actually some method to this madness, but frankly, it's still madness.
Till after the presidential elections??
Obviously the outcome is not guaranteed, however there appears to be a good chance that the next president will most likely be a democrat. If this happens, the chance of a veto is far less likely. Why constantly push for bills in an environment where there is a 100% chance of failure?
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Has ANY of the "investigating committees" actually been able to do ANYTHING other than political grandstand? If the dems had actually been focused on holding to their ideals and getting their votes done rather than waste our taxpayer money on pointless exercises that produce no real results (unless you count publicity), they may not have wasted the last few years.
Such committees have done NOTHING. All they do is provide platforms for speeches and "questions" which the speaker doesn't care about any findings or answers, just their own political position.
At least they're not screwing anything up when they do this, they're just spinning their wheels.
This is a great idea as we all know that Bush & Co. have been doing all kinds of rapacious acts behind closed doors, from political prosecutions (as in the US Attorney scandal) to others making money off of their political associations. I'm sure we will find that Bush & his cronies were using those unfettered investigations for political purposes, to help them win difficult elections. Does the United States need any more evidence of the deeply-based corruption that lies at the beating heart of the Republican party? They are rich people trying to stay rich, nothing more.
The Democrats also choose pork barrel politics to police accountability. What else is new? Congress gets paid for making the system work for some people, not the people.
Not being from New York I didn't know much about the man, so I checked, and it turns out he's a Democrat. So ever since yesterday I've been wondering if this was an attempt to bring down the Democratic Governor of a key state, like they did in Alabama. I'll be curious to see how much media complacency there is in the New York case.
This is not my sandwich.
Bush & Co. have been doing all kinds of rapacious acts - Dubya himself, helped by the Secret Service tried to break into my house last week to steal my children so he and Dick can sell them to white slave traders so they can stay rich. When I tried to report this to my local police, they refused to take a report; said it didn't happen.
I'd like to point out that the last sentence is pretty much true of both parties. People tend to forget that politicians in the Democrat party are also fabulously rich, and are magically "Just like us" because they're a Democrat. Mostly they're just angry that the Republicans got to abuse the system, and they didn't.
All this commotion about domestic spying, wire-tapping, etc. could have easily been avoided if everybody was playing by the rules and held accountable to the rules. There already exists a method for the president to issue warrant-less wiretaps within FISA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy#FISA. The big difference between the current methods and FISA is the lack of oversight. FISA requires that a warrantless wire tap is brought before a judge in closed session within 72 hours of its inception.
This means that in a "ticking time bomb" scenario, investigators have the power to tap and begin monitoring suspects before a proper warrant can be obtained. Once the surveillance has begun, investigators have 72 hours (an ample amount of time in a ticking bomb scenario) to collect evidence and present it. If there indeed is a bomb out there, the judge should have no problem issuing a proper warrant.
The current problem is this; nobody wants to play by the rules. Everybody in the intelligence community along with most of the executive branch want to play king. They want to work independently and forgo the checks and balances. It is not that uncommon for branches of government to try to gain more power so they can do their work "easily." Unfortunately, it's our civil liberties that are being stomped on.
Transparent and balanced oversight is the only thing that will cure this ill. Without a diverse and unconnected group monitoring each other, we will lose the liberties that make this country so fantastic. Sure, it's scary to think about dying in a World Trade Center type attack, but it's much more scary to live in a state with secret police secretly monitoring you. The chances of dying in a terrorist attack are vanishingly small; the chances of losing your civil liberties if laws like the Protect America Act are allowed to exist are alarmingly high.
I for one, believe that laws like the Protect America Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_America_Act_of_2007 are just the thing that erode our liberty for the fleeting promise of a tiny bit of security. Without judicial or congressional oversight, who polices the police? The answer is scary and we only need to look to Peru, East Germany or any other state with Stazi like organizations for the answer.
Ben Franklin said it best over 200 years ago, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." It's almost like he knew what he was doing...
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
In fact, 'Bush & Co.' will leave the White House significantly poorer than the previous Administration who received all kinds of payments for things like pardons, government subsidized loans, putting friends up in the White House, and selling White House furniture and flatware. Al Gore alone is worth two hundred million these days, more than the entire administration combined.
I wouldn't oppose this kind of investigation if there were any legal standing for a complaint. But it's been quite clear for years now that what Democrats refer to as 'domestic spying' includes phone calls that route through the US but whose endpoints are both foreign and made by non-citizens. The Constitutional protections of due process were not intended to protect these calls any more than they protected the Soviets and Nazis internal communications.
Even with all of that, I could accept that it's the prerogative of the party in power to cudgel the party not in power if only Congress wasn't still trying to finish last year's budgets. They've accomplished nothing so far and they're not even doing that well.
First, the nation's business, THEN play self-indignant party apparatchik.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
They are rich people trying to stay rich, nothing more.
Nothing wrong with rich people trying to stay rich. The problem occurs when they are rich people trying to stay rich at your expense.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Hold on cowboy, for the first six years of Bush's reign, they held on to both houses of congress and there were no investigations of the Bush Administration. And I must disagree with your blanket whitewash of the Bushies. I think getting us into a war on the basis of false information is a pretty big stain on this administration. Your statement better applies to Bill Clinton, who was indeed investigated to the hilt with the only result being that he was caught with Monica. There was never shown an example of Clinton enriching himself or any of his friends during his time. Bush, however, and Halliburton? I think it is really obvious that Bush is dishonest and corrupt. But we will wait for history to judge.
I gotta agree with another poster. This just smacks of posturing, an effort to grab some sort of "positive" attention from the negativity of the Democratic candidates and cast a bad light on the GOP (as if they needed help!). We have more important things to spend time on, like addressing gas prices or how to tell private sports leagues how to run their drug testing programs.
Bearded Dragon
The 9/11 Commission was a joke, so I guess this one will be.
The political hacks will first have to find a "domestic surveillance program" rather than the surveillance of international terrorists who are phoning co-workers in the USA or in other countries through equipment in the USA.
That the House even put something like this out there at all. If we hadn't been sending many, passionate letters demanding Congress deny amnesty to the telcos for illegally spying on us, then they wouldn't have bothered to float this proposal.
So to all those out there who think that there's nothing anyone can do to change the course of government, this is evidence you can; you just have to take a little time to write a letter or make a phone call to your representative.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Personally, I'd prefer they at least try to protect our freedoms. If you want to spend less on gasoline, alter your lifestyle or living situation so you don't need to rely on it as much, if at all.
I agree with you that this is what they've been doing--posturing while the country and Constitution burn. Perhaps they think it will help them win the Whitehouse.
And it is frustrating to watch them do that when they were elected to a majority to put a stop to the run-away corruption and incompetence of the other side.
But the FISA fight is not partisan. Bush and the neoconservative leaders in Congress want a free pass to break the law and spy on all Americans. But Americans, left, right, and center, don't want to give it to them. As much as we have lost the last 8 years, there still is a core of decency in the American soul, and enough paranoia to give government, any government, carte blanche.
See, it's fine to have those powers when your party is in power, but the trouble is that only works as long as your party is in power. The fear is that your party will lose power, and then those powers will be turned against you. The thought of Hillary Clinton, for instance, in the Whitehouse with the powers Bush and Cheney have arrogated to the Executive branch makes my blood run cold.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I'm sure its ONLY the Bushes who have ever done such a thing, clearly there have never been self-interested rapacious Democrats who've used the White House as their private bordello, and/or leveraged the power of their office for constant personal and familial financial gain.
(rolls eyes)
And people wonder why our political system is a shambles? That someone could make the comment above mine with a straight face and not immediately question their own objectivity? You expect to make such a comment and be taken seriously? Hello?
Re the OP, I'd find it more useful if there was an investigation into the constant and repeated FAILURES of US intelligence agencies over the last 20 years:
- the Soviet Union's collapse was a surprise to them
- the failure to find/kill Bin Laden
- the entire mess of Iraqi WMDs (no matter what they say NOW, it was a widely accepted fact pre-Bush that Saddam was working on WMDs)
- internal political bias
- cronyism
Frankly, I wish our intel agencies were even HALF as effective as the tinfoil-hatters presume they are. I'm sure they accomplish a lot of wonderful things for our country that I'll never be privy to, but from here in the cheap seats, it certainly seems like they aren't terribly effective.
-Styopa
The administration's instinct to strip away our freedoms in the name of desperate fear is misguided. Rather, we should be supportive of people in the middle east who are growing weary of being ruled by fundamentalist Islam. Fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Christian, or otherwise is fine for those folks who self select into it but it is tyranny when it gains the backing of coercive power.
This article is about one Sheikh in Saudi Arabia who is tired of being bullied by fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia. The US should invest 1.0% of its current Iraq war budget in people like him rather than creating converts to funadmentalist Islam with our war in Iraq. Nurture a moderate alternative and fundamentalism will remain small.
Well, I have followed politics for the past thirty years and I would say that you do see crooks in both parties. The distinction I would make is that Republicans generally lie to make money while Democrats lie more for personal, non-monetary gain. Certainly you can find exceptions but I do believe that most people would agree that the GOP loves money most of all.
Cabinet's net worth according to Democrats.senate.gov
For a second there, I thought this news item was regarding the "New England Patriots Spygate". Perhaps the most overblown, who-gives-a-shit story of the past year. I'm sure Arlen Specter http://specter.senate.gov/public/ would much rather talk NFL football spying than dig into FBI domestic surveillance.
Yes it does smack of posturing but i'd rather they at least posture than just lay around and do nothing (anymore than they already do)
You are correct that the Electoral College and not the People elect the President, but your supposition of a conspiratorial safety valve there is exaggerated.
The Electoral College is not a static group of Illuminati holding secret rites in the basement of the Lincoln Memorial. It's just an artifact of the fact that the States elect the President. Each State gets a certain number of Electors, equal to the number of its representation in Congress (House + Senate). As mentioned upthread, States are not required to have a popular vote to decide their Electors; they could decide it in the State Legislature, let the Governor pick, or even draw straws. Now that would be fun.
The system was designed to keep one massively overpopulated region of the country from ruling over the rest. Today it has the effect of keeping the cities from dominating the rural areas.
It's possible, in an asteroid-hits-Earth kind of way, that something substantial could happen in the few days between the general election and the assembly of the Electoral College to make them change their votes. Even then, an immediate impeachment would be more likely than an Electoral College rebellion. It's also within the Constitutional rules for the Electors as a group to abstain from voting or to try their best and fail to elect a President, putting the election in the hands of the House of Representatives.
sigs, as if you care.
Too bad that despite eight years of intense scrutiny, multi-million dollar bounties, and boundless efforts to fabricate evidence, no attempt to show that this Administration has flagrantly broken the law, let alone for the purpose of self-enrichment, has succeeded. This idiotic expenditure of congressional calendar and of taxpayer money won't either. Haliburton has received fewer no-bid contracts under Bush than they did under Clinton.
Okay, first of all, as the earlier response mentioned, Congress has only been in the Democrats hands for a couple of years. During the time that the Republicans were in control, there was virtually no oversight of the administration. When the Democrats did gain control, they have razor thin margins in both houses. I will admit that occasionally there is grandstanding, but at least they are trying to do some of the oversight that is spelled out in the Constitution. And I believe that your "efforts to fabricate evidence" needs a big fat citation needed.
Also worth mentioning is the size of those Haliburton no-bid contracts. It means nothing for the pure numbers of contracts if the size of those contracts are not the same. A wartime budget surely is higher in price than the previous contracts they may have gotten.
In fact, 'Bush & Co.' will leave the White House significantly poorer than the previous Administration who received all kinds of payments for things like pardons, government subsidized loans, putting friends up in the White House, and selling White House furniture and flatware. Al Gore alone is worth two hundred million these days, more than the entire administration combined.
Again, citation needed please. Plus, let's just wait to see what "W" does in his last few days in office. That's traditionally when previous Presidents have handed out their bulk of pardons.
I wouldn't oppose this kind of investigation if there were any legal standing for a complaint. But it's been quite clear for years now that what Democrats refer to as 'domestic spying' includes phone calls that route through the US but whose endpoints are both foreign and made by non-citizens. The Constitutional protections of due process were not intended to protect these calls any more than they protected the Soviets and Nazis internal communications.
Once again, please cite where you get this kind of classification for domestic spying. One of the main arguments the Democrats have had against expanded wiretap authority has been the availability of the FISA courts which in the past has worked quickly, efficiently and rarely if ever turns down a legitimate request. It sounds to me that this description of the Democrats stance on domestic spying is the product of the echo chamber of conservative radio and pundits.
Even with all of that, I could accept that it's the prerogative of the party in power to cudgel the party not in power if only Congress wasn't still trying to finish last year's budgets. They've accomplished nothing so far and they're not even doing that well.
First, the nation's business, THEN play self-indignant party apparatchik.
Let's not forget that the Republican congress two years ago, in the final months before they lost control of Congress decided to go into recess early and not finish the budget at all during their calendar year. This action unnecessarily passed responsibility of the previous Congress onto the incoming Congress. They could have done the nation's business, they could have passed budget items the nation needed, but instead decided to pick up camp stakes and go home.
However, the current problem with government is that they have forgotten how to govern. Part of that responsibility is the ability and the necessity to compromise. However, with hard-nose tactics and frequent grandstanding by both parties, the very thought that just this Congressional session is a do-nothing Congress full of grandstanding is just not seeing the Congress over the last fifteen years.
As I registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2004, I have to say that this administration has become corrupt. For six years, they had a one-party system with control of both houses and the presidency. The administration has been way too secretive and needs more transparency. I still think Iraq was the right thing to do, but we have gone about it the wrong way.
Whoever gets elected, I hope the other party gets control of congress.
Congress is proposing a draft of a bill to enact a commission to investigate the possibility of something having had or have had not happened - and being met with resistance. The Republic in Action.
http://www.coderoshi.com/
The president will be gone in a year.
Maybe Obama will sign it.
Yes, it's a presidential prediction, don't get you panties in a twist.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...those same Democrats are completely ignoring any and all activity outside of the U.S.
there have been number of times where the presidents party wasn't the majority.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Do candidates focus their campaigns on States with lots of votes, making big States matter more, or do small States matter more?
sigs, as if you care.
A vote in OK carries (marginally) more weight than one in CA, but not that much more. You get more say in which candidate wins Oklahoma, but Oklahoma has less say in who gets to be President by almost the same proportion.
As far as the independent thing goes, you're really in the same boat as the rest of us, pally. We don't like our candidates much either.
sigs, as if you care.
Your vote is not useless.
If you and I disagree about something, and we talk and you make your points, then you may not change my mind but you will have been heard.
Voting works that way, too and lets everyone else know that someone thinks the way you do.
sigs, as if you care.
Nothing is foolproof, fools are too ingenious. - Murphy
In the same vein as the 9/11 commission, too. The very same one that promptly got ignored by both the White House and Congress and has been doing nothing but collecting dust since its release.
Investigations? Lawsuits? Independent prosecutors? Impeachment hearings? Oh no, that's too much like work.
And the Democrats are wondering why their Congress is about as popular as the previous Republican one, and why some new guy whose barely made a name for himself, whose only real defining point is that he wasn't involved with any of this six years ago, is able to seriously challenge a party big-wig who's been around for 20 years for their presidential nomination?
I'm sure it wouldn't take long to make a list of problems that need solutions:
Social Security (Baby boomers retiring) Health Care (1/4 of teen girls with STDs, Baby boomeers retiring) Prison Overcrowding (1 out of 100 Americans?!?) Corporate Tax Loopholes (I pay more then some multinational cause they have really good accountants) Infrastructure (Built before the baby boomers were born) etc...
It is the job of Congress to address these issues. Instead, the members of our Congress are more interested in advancing their own careers and getting reelected (which means tearing down the other side). It's hard to argue that America deserves better, cause we keep sending the same people back to Washington every year.
Both parties are going to end up running Senators for President. My question is 'If they have the solution to America's problems, why didn't they introduce their solutions in the Senate?'. If their solution requires them to be President to work, then I doubt that I will like the solution.
More likely they don't have the solution, just monumental egos.
Robert Anton Wilson had it right. We're in the 5th phase of government, Bureaucracry, which lasts until we run out of paper (and they have a committee to fix that).
Your statement better applies to Bill Clinton, who was indeed investigated to the hilt with the only result being that he was caught with Monica.
Monica was found under the desk in the oral office after it was alleged he perjured himself in a civil trial. That investigation found Monica. He was found guilty in the other trial. He is also the only President to have been dis-bared (Not by congress, the state of Arkansas).
There was never shown an example of Clinton enriching himself or any of his friends during his time.
And yes, Bill and Hill did receive financial gain from their time in office: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=3866786
Bush, however, and Halliburton? I think it is really obvious that Bush is dishonest and corrupt.
Bush is neither dishonest or corrupt. His sin is not seeing (wisdom?) that his good intentions (FISA/Patriot/Monetary policies) pave the way to Hell.
I wonder just how many planes would go down if ALL security measures were removed?
.
If we continue as we are going commercial carriers will become nudist colonies and body cavity searches will be performed prior to boarding. Perhaps it will also become a crime to semaphorically show interest in another passenger. Blindfolds too, I would guess. Maybe travel will have to become something like that depicted in The 5th Element. Nude and drugged. Your luggage will be delivered to your hotel upon arrival via separate cover.
Well bombs could be surgically implanted, Or heck, ground based anti-aircraft.
Hell, it is too hard to give you your security. NO TRAVEL. That eliminates the threat. That includes no pickup trucks , then could have fertilizer. We could simply kill everyone, but then who would pay for the lifestyle of the people in the government? That won't do.
. .
Lets go back to the what if we eliminated all of the security.
Nothing is foolproof, fools are too ingenious. - Murphy
A comment above says that you should look at people's actions, not their words.
McCain voted AGAINST banning torture. He says he is against torture, but when it came to a vote, he vote to allow it.
Social Security is not welfare. And either is veterans retirement, medical care, and disability support.
2007 federal spending on military was $625,850,000,000
"Income support" was $119,021,000,000
Interest on the Reagan/Bush debt was $429,966,000,000
You can make up your own mind about the priorities and values expressed by our budget.
The telecoms don't have immunity now (unless something got passed Congress while I was asleep). Don't put anything granting them immunity in any bill and the pres. won't have anything to veto.
In the meantime, bring on the lawsuits. I'm looking forward to the telecoms negotiating immunity in court on a case by case basis by submitting evidence on how the gov't coerced them into cooperating. The administration is trying to buy their silence. Organized crime played this game for years.
Have gnu, will travel.
Actually, voting for (and overriding a veto) would be an excellent way for conservative Republicans to regain their base of support. They'd lose the support of the Bushlike-Republicans, but that radical faction isn't very popular anymore. No one knows what is really going to happen, but there's a very real threat that a Democrat could be elected president this year. Declaring open season on Bush's Stalinist tendencies, and moving the Republican party back to a conservative stance, could possibly save the party.
Saying that the military is a valid and important use of government money does not imply that it should get a blank check. The military is right now spending hundreds of billions of dollars on projects that have nothing at all to do with the sorts of wars that we've been involved in in recent decades. This country simply does not have infinite money. Sure, it may be nice to get that new 5 billion dollar sub, but do we really need it? Do we really need to buy ANY new non-robotic aircraft? Do we really need an unbelievably expensive ineffective (both actually and theoretically) missile defense system to protect us against an enemy that is far more likely to just set off a few home made bombs in shopping centers or buses or concerts?
/dev/null/pork)
This country is in the poorhouse right now. We need to get back in the black and the first thing to do is slash pointless military programs which are nothing more than pork.
If you want quid-pro-quo then I'd be overjoyed if we could slash social spending too. But at least the social spending isn't money that's being thrown into a pointless pork filled black hole. (That would be
Cow Cube
I propose we drop this tortured term "warrantless" and call this what it is: "unwarranted"