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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.'"
As far as I'm concerned, every single member of Congress who votes in favor of this bill is guilty of treason.
Technoli
My Quote Chain:
"Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word "safe" that I wasn't previously aware of."
--Arthur Dent
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
--Thomas Paine
"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy."
--David Korten
You feel a whole lot more like you do now than you did when you used to.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
What right does the government have to say that an individual or company who violated your rights cannot be held accountable. Has the government gone so completely backwards that now they're endorsing rather than preventing rights violations?
It's like a rapist asking God for forgiveness. Only the victim has the right to forgive.
I've been writing and calling my Congressman, Elliot Engel, on this issue for months. Yesterday I received an email from his staff stating he was happy to tell me there was no telecom immunity as of the March FISA vote. Upset that this completely neglected to mention how he planned to vote on this bill today, I called his office. The staffer said she'd never heard of FISA or telecom immunity. I called a different office, and they said they didn't know where he stood on the issue but they'd be happy to call me back once he voted. Talk about a joke. This has really been eye-opening to me.
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 --
- (i) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007 and
- (i) authorized by the President; and
The rest of this Orwellian missive is available as a PDF file.(A) in connection with intelligence activity involving communications that was
(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
(ii) determined to be lawful.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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.
On both sides of the isle. Both parties have lost their way and are now off in despotic cuckoo-land. Whatever we have become, if they have their way we will certainly be no Republic any longer. The only option is to boot every damn representative who votes for this bill regardless of party. They clearly do not represent a constitution of a nation ruled by laws and not men.
I say we start with Representatives Pelosi, Hoyer, and Bond.
Since both presidential candidates are in congress, they way that they vote on this bill should be the tipping point for anyone on the fence between the two. Unless of course they both vote for this, then they should both be tarred and feathered.
Heck, we should tar and feather them anyway...every presidential candidate should learn what it feels like before they reach that office.
"If the PRESIDENT does it!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
As the new de facto leader of the Democratic Party, and as a Senator, Barack Obama could stop this with a word. What will he say ? Will he stand up for liberty ? Or betray it before he even gets elected ?
You gave up your weapons to feel safe because you don't want the responsibility.
You gave up your rights to feel safe because you don't want the responsibility.
You feel safe because you abdicated your responsibility to ensure the govt did not run over the people.
Look ! Its American Idol. You can quit reading now.
You are safe.
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.
he's alive and well. in spirit, at least.
didn't FISA come from nixon era wiretapping?
so all the 'progress' we made since the nixon days has been overturned.
so, would that make bush the 'new nixon'?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This type of encroachment on civil liberties was commonplace during the Red Scare and through the Vietnam era. There was backlash, some high profile scandals, and we got the FISA. 9/11 was the impetus for changing the balance of power back to the state. Since the passage of the PATRIOT Act, the government has been steadily grabbing at more (unconstitutional) powers to surveille its citizens. Hopefully there will be public backlash, but the power structure of the country is quite a bit different from previous eras. I would argue the US is more corporatist than in any previous era, and now we're fighting on two fronts. Hence the telco immunity provisions. Corporations and the state are getting a bit too cozy for my taste, and capitalism be damned, I don't want to end up in a facsist state.
Now they can be subpoenaed as a material witness against the Executive, and they'll enjoy far less protections against their having to produce evidence. No fifth amendment protections for one, since it couldn't incriminate them.
Not that this will actually happen, but it's a nice fantasy.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I think we need a constitutional amendment. It should read:
"Any bill that comes before the Congress to be passed into law must be able to be summarized accurately and without loss of detail into 50 words or less. Once this is accomplished, the original multi-thousand page document shall be thrown out, and the 50-word summary presented for passage into law."
And perhaps another one:
"Anyone who attempts to add text to a bill that is completely at odds with or irrelevant to the bill's title shall be considered guilty of treason and put to death immediately in as brutal a way as possible."
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Well regulated markets work the best. Without regulation, you cannot assign cost to environmental damage, or prevent greed from wrecking society. Hierarchies will always get top heavy with power and corruption. If that hierarchy is in a corporation, there's nothing the public can do about it. If they are in a functioning democracy, at least the public can vote corruption out during the next election cycle.
So, a healthy but limited government keeping corporate power in check will yield many of the benefits of capitalism. I think in order to do this we need to introduce the separation of business and state.
Public officials should not be allowed to seek employment after their service with any firm that does business with the government. If you don't like it, don't run for office. You're running because you want to participate as a proud citizen of our democracy, not so you can enjoy power and kickbacks. Right?
(ii) determined to be lawful. Now, there's nothing wrong with the Attorney General making a legal opinion - that's pretty much his job: The original duties of this officer were "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments." What happens when you instruct the courts to drop any case against any action that has been "determinaed to be legal"? Folks, you have the wonderful choices of:
a) the Legislative branch instructing the Judicial branch to obey the Executive branch
b) an Executive branch that essentially makes its own law on what's legal and not
c) creating government-sponsored thugs outside the law, free from the restrictions of the government
d) all of the above
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Granted, so far it's "only" about illegal wiretaps against U.S. citizens. But essentially this says "If the PotUS says 'do task A for me', then the company that does task A cannot and will not be held liable, even if it breaks the law."
So far that task has been (and might still be) "spy on U.S. citizens"
What's to stop the next task from being "rough up U.S. citizens who mouth off against the government"? Or "kill U.S. citizens who are a pain in the ass"?
Sure, that's a big slippery slope, but then again, I'm sure if you went back to say ... September 2000 and asked people on the street, they'd probably say that the U.S. government would NEVER allow such a thing. Of course, they'd probably say the same thing about torture (or whatever phrase you'd like to use instead), suspension of habeas corpus and a lot of other things that have happend in less than a decade. Even "small" stuff like purposely revealing the name and occupation of an active CIA agent working abroad.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
We still might get the lawsuits. If you read that, the section 4(B)(ii) requires it to be "determined to be lawful", only the Courts can determine that the acts are lawful, not the President. As such, if the Court decides that the act was not lawful, the Telecom is still not immune to the activity.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
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.
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