FISA Bill Vote Today, With Telco Immunity

Bimo_Dude writes "Today (June 20), Steny Hoyer is bringing to the House floor the latest FISA bill (PDF), which includes retroactive immunity for the telcos. The bill also is very weak on judicial review, allowing the telcos to use a letter from the president as a 'get out of liability free' card. Here are comments from the EFF. Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, describes the effect of the immunity clause this way: 'So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words — the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists — and the minute he utters those words, the courts are required to dismiss the lawsuits against the telecoms, no matter how illegal their behavior was.'"

Comments

"Protection of Persons Assisiting the Government"

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Section 802(a) provides:

[A] civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be properly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the district court of the United States in which such action is pending that . . .

(4) the assistance alleged to have been provided . . . was --

• 
  (A) in connection with intelligence activity involving communications that was
  • (i) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007 and
    (ii) designed to prevent or detect a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation of a terrorist attack, against the United States" and

  (B) the subject of a written request or directive . . . indicating that the activity was

  • (i) authorized by the President; and
    (ii) determined to be lawful.

The rest of this Orwellian missive is available as a PDF file.

Game over man, game over!

[the_macman]

Done and done. The house just voted to pass the bill. Kiss telco prosecution goodbye, kiss accountability goodbye, kiss your civil liberties goodybye.

I was watching it live on CSPAN, pretty disgusting. Just remember who voted for this when elections come up.

Re:Game over man, game over!

[KevinKnSC]

This is a vote in the House of Representatives. Obama and McCain are members of the Senate, which voted on this issue months ago. For the short-memoried among us, Obama opposes telecom immunity, and McCain supports it.

Re:Game over man, game over!

[Guppy06]

"Obama and McCain are members of the Senate, which voted on this issue months ago."

On a completely different bill, S. 2248, which passed the Senate but was defeated in the House. This is H.R. 6304, being hailed and endorsed by House and Senate leaders in both parties as a great compromise.

"For the short-memoried among us, Obama opposes telecom immunity, and McCain supports it."

If the House can change its mind so drastically in four months, why not these men?

IT'S NOT ILLEGAL

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"If the PRESIDENT does it!"

Re:IT'S NOT ILLEGAL

[Bimo_Dude]

That's one of the main points of the bill. The weird thing is that this morning, there was an editorial in the Washington Post indicating that the newspaper supports the bill.

It was my hope that the article would be posted in time for people to contact their representatives, but also, the scumbags passed the bill at just about the same time that this article made the front page of /.. The roll call is not available on Thomas yet though.

Re:IT'S NOT ILLEGAL

[KevinKnSC]

The roll call is not available on Thomas yet though. It's up now: Roll Call 437

Re:IT'S NOT ILLEGAL

[GuyverDH]

In the military, we are given a class during basic training on how to respond to superiors who give illegal orders.

Examples are given of what constitutes and illegal order, and what the proper phrasing of the response should be. Granted, you will probably end up at some kind of punitive action review, if not full court-martial for disobeying or refusing to obey a superior officer, yet, you have your out. However, if enough evidence or witnesses are available to show that the order that was given was in fact illegal, then the superior who gave said order is brought up on charges. At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

Now, if all the telcos that did this activity, were to show that they were authorized or requested by the president to do this illegal activity then wouldn't that potentially be fuel for the fire to have criminal charges brought against the President? ie - add to the charges of impeachment?

Regardless of his reasoning, committing an illegal act is still committing an illegal act, and 9/11 did not change the constitution.

Final vote in the House

[Goobergunch]

YEA 293
NAY 129

The full breakdown, showing which way each representative voted, will be available at Roll No. 437 in roughly an hour, when the Clerk of the House posts it.

Re:Press the button labeled "Submit"

[bsDaemon]

Mussolini never said nor wrote that, nor did Giovani Gentile, so I'm not sure where this quote comes from.

Likewise, in Italian Fascism, "corporation" means a vertical trade union, like a syndicate, and is akin to guild socialism. The people at the top of the corporation are the "masters" and the people at the bottom are the "apprentices" with varying levels of competancy in between.

Votes for the Chamber of Deputies are then done by occupation -- so the transportation syndicate is comprised of airline and rail workers, for instance. They then vote for members to represent them in the parliament.

Only people who are experts in their field craft laws and regulations, which are then given to approval. The "dictator" then has ultimate responsibility to carry it out.

Frankly, it sounds a hell of a lot better than our current popularity contest that leads to lawyers from dairy country trying to pass laws regarded IT policy, for instance.

Not that I'm a fascist, I just read everything about them I could get out of my university library 'cause i didn't have tv.

Re:Hmmm

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"And that is the inevitable result of free market capitalism, or fascist states where the government is "the shadow of business cast over society.""

That is not capitalism, but corporatism.

"Without regulation, you cannot assign cost to environmental damage or prevent greed from wrecking society."

What is this based on? Do you have any supporting evidence that "greed wrecks society", or should we just accept what you say?

"Hierarchies will always get top heavy with power and corruption."

Corruption only becomes a concern to the public when it is backed by force, something which only the government can apply.

"If they are in a functioning democracy, at least the public can vote corruption out during the next election cycle."

And that official will be replaced by another corrupt official. As long as the government is able to manipulate the economy, individuals and businesses will flock to them to get manipulation in their favor (otherwise they risk seeing unfavorable legislation forced against them).

"So, a healthy but limited government keeping corporate power in check will yield many of the benefits of capitalism."

The ends do not justify the means, ever. A few temporary positives are not worth giving up all your rights.

"I think in order to do this we need to introduce the separation of business and state."

I can agree with that, although you seem to think the fault lies with the businesses, whereas for me, because the state is the entity actually applying the force on the public, I see the state as to blame.

Re:Press the button labeled "Submit"

[gv250]

"Any government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you've got." - attributed to Thomas Jefferson Doesn't sound anything like him. Mark Twain perhaps. Would you believe Gerald Ford?

Official: Obama Supports This!

[plasmacutter]

Obama Officially Supports This

He seems to view giving retroactive immunity to corporations for horrendous violations of US law and the constitution as something "disagreeable but potentially acceptable".

I think i'm going to vote for Mccain. I'm left by canadian standards, but my position means jack if the candidate lies to you. Mccain is honest.

I know he doesn't give a flying crap about me and is in bed with corporations. I know what to expect from him.