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House Votes For Telco Immunity; Obama Will Support?
We discussed telecom immunity yesterday ahead of the House vote. It passed by 293 votes to 129. Only one Republican voted against the bill; Democrats were evenly split. It now goes to the Senate. Reader Verteiron points out that Glenn Greenwald has up a post titled "Statement of Barack Obama supporting Hoyer FISA bill." It says that Obama will try to get the immunity provision removed, but failing that will vote for the overhauled wiretapping bill anyway. I couldn't find this on Obama's official site. Anyone seen a position from the McCain camp?
Perhaps that slogan only really means that we can hope all we want for some change, 'cause we're never going to get it.
He's on the Senate committee that is responsible for them. He's going to vote for it, you can be assured.
This does not stop law suits. It gives telcos who have written requests from the government, dated after 9/11/2001, that state the president authorized the specific wire tap to not be liable.
1)The telcos still have to go to court and file papers
2)so many people were violated that there will be many many suits
3)they have to have written proof that the president authorized it (not likely given the fact that Bush wanted to not be caught)
4)there is evidence that Bush had been doing this domestic wire tapping before 9/11
5)A judge still decides if the proof provided by the telcos meets the standard
I can't think of anything profound to say. I hate to be the bearer of hopelessness, but I think that the US is too far down the road to being a police state. There is no way this will get reversed. I don't see this thing being defeated in the Senate. There are too many powerful lobbies behind it. Sorry.
I'm done with giving Obama money. I want a return to constitutional governance, and supported him because I thought that's what he stood for. Apparently not. This has nothing to do with party politics and everything to do with the betrayal of rule of law by both political parties. They have eviscerated the fourth amendment without so much as a peep from the Supreme Court.
This is getting very ugly. At this point the only hope for citizens to return to constitutional governance nonviolently will be for mass general strikes throughout the United States. Otherwise, everything our founders stood for in the creation of the Bill of Rights will be diluted to nothing before our eyes. I do not wish to live in a totalitarian United States of America.
Obama will try to get the immunity provision removed, but failing that will vote for the overhauled wiretapping bill anyway.
This is just another case where multiple issues are stacked into one bill, forcing legislators to either support something they don't want or vote against something they do want. Yes there is supposed to be a solid connection between all the parts of a bill, but legislators can't vote yea on one line item and nay on another and often time the connections between items on a single bill are tenuous. Tagging unpopular items to otherwise popular bills is one of the more common forms of corruption in our legislative process.
We are all just people.
What kind of checks and balances in a Republic is that? What federal branch of government does the Justice Department belong to? Who is the head of the Justice Department?
This kills all of the lawsuits by quaffing each suit prior to the discovery process. All the AG must do is certify that the request for a wiretap came directly from him and the requirement for warrants - while still legally valid - can be ignored due to the fact that the outcome will never become public.
The consequences of this legislation is exactly the opposite of what you say.
The government may have been the ones that asked, but the phone companies did their bidding, they though it was a good idea and went through with it. Only Qwest denies the requests, IIRC.
I always hate the comparison...but 'i was just following orders' is not and never will be an excuse to do wrong.
You say no, tell people what was wanted of you and keep saying it is wrong.
This isnt some 3rd world shithole where this deal took place.
There were phone calls and meetings between business men and US government officials. No one was going to be beaten, families raped, or killed for not following orders of the government.
The worst threat anyone in the administration or government had was to TRY to threaten a loss of government contracts. I could also see planting of stories in the media possibly but not really likely...
There was no down side to saying no to questionable requests. NONE.
What the hell ever happened to Question Authority?
Here's the thing. I look at a lot of Obama supporters today and I see in them a lot of the same things I saw in myself when I was big into the Republican Party.
The moral of the story is that you can't buy into any single party's message, and that you need to make either political party work hard for your vote. Nobody gets screwed over by a political party more than its most loyal supporters...
We need to get past the game that we are being worked towards, where we see Democrats and Republican as enemies, and re-learn to appreciate each other as citizens. We need to tell ourselve that it is as ok to be a redneck with his cars up on blocks (that's me), as it is to be a gay couple getting married, that a man has as much right to own rifle as he does to burn the flag, that, we together have natural rights that encompass not just the bill of rights, but beyond them. And, we need to understand that when someone else is trying to get us caught up in a civil war of even a political sort, they are only doing so that in the cause of protecting us from these imagined fellow citizens as enemies, that they are taking the rights of everyone.
This is my sig.
Text of the House bill, see section 802.f:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-6304
EFF analysis of the immunity portion of the bill:
http://www.eff.org/files/AnalysisHR6304-v5.pdf
The Bush Administration are the real criminals in this case, why aren't they being held accountable? Everyone is gung ho about crucifying the Telco's, what about the people who ordered them to do the spying?
While I don't agree with what they did, I can understand why the Teclo's agreed to the situation. The Bush Administration probably assured them that were the program ever exposed, they would be granted immunity, and in the mean time they made a fair bit of money off the illegal activities of the government. Both groups should be tried for their actions, but people should be much more upset with the government over this.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
BUT it only gives immunity to wiretapping that started after 9/11. The program started before 9/11 - a few weeks after Bush took office, in fact. This was when the Bush people were ignoring terror threats so it was not about terrorists.
Ummm...the only? The article you quoted has Reid saying he'd fight. Conyers fought it. Nadler fought it. Feingold fought it. Now that it's going to the Senate, Leahy and Dodd will likely lead the charge against it. (My not-paying-much-attention understanding is that Dodd's been pretty amazing about this stuff for some time now.)
There are a lot of Democrats putting up a decent fight. Just not enough. (And to be Fair and Balanced about it, there are some Republicans doing the right thing too, including our usually-hated Senator Arlen Specter.)
Pelosi, however, is made of fail.
What about 9/11/2001 is legally relevant? Ie, what makes wiretapping (or whatever it is being called) okay after that date?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
You see, Google & Obama combined their slogans. It now reads, "Change no evil"
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
Sure have. Apparently, we shouldn't grant immunity to the telecoms--no, wait, I mean we should grant immunity to the telecoms. Of course, the wiretapping was legal anyway, though on second thought maybe it wasn't.
So there you have it: John McCain's stance on wiretapping and telecom immunity. hope that cleared things up for you. :-)
If you're not going to vote for either main party, could I convince you to either vote Green or Libertarian? In my personal opinion, I believe that voting for a nearly mainstream '3rd' party sends the most effective "middle finger" to the ruling cabal.
Personally, the Green Party platform is something I can support, they even support the kind of feminism I can get behind (the equality kind, not the men are pigs kind). Having said that, the more support we can get to the major '3rd' parties (I hate that term if you can't tell by the quotes), the more of a message we can send that the 'bipartisanship' that only seems to come about when screwing the populous is no longer acceptable.
"Pelosi, however, is made of fail."
Pelosi is shrub's little bitch now, because she knew about the White House's plans for illegal detention and torture back in 2002 or 2003 and didn't raise the bullshit flag. Her career is the reason Bush hasn't been impeached and locked in Gitmo.
Bitch can go to Gitmo, too, as far as I'm concerned.
(1) Obama turned down federal financing the other day.
(2) He is totally reliant on private contributions to carry the campaign to the White House.
(3) It is the internet fund raising that has brought in huge dollars for him.
(4) Stop being adoring fans and start thinking like empowered citizens
(5) Get on Reddit, Digg, twitter, Facebook, etc.: NO FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS until Obama proves leadership on Telecom Immunity
(6) Learn what it feels like to have real power.
Pelosi is one of the reasons I can't respect the Democratic Congress. She's an utter failure and a moron, and there are so many candidates for Speaker that they should have looked at before her. She is basically an affirmative action choice, and a poor one at that.
But that's just my opinion.
You are overlooking the largest reason she is speaker - money. She was an enormously successful fundraiser for the Dems, and she was imbibed hardball machine politics like mother's milk from her family in Baltimore.
So many other democrats owed her they HAD to vote for her when she threw her hat in the ring - they owed her literally and figuratively.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This is why the current weapons laws are completely backwards. The weapons that are illegal are exactly the ones we need to protect democracy, and the weapons that are legal are exactly the ones we should ban.
For instance, there is no reason for handguns to be available. They are not tools of war so much as of murder.
Antitank weapons, RPGs, and heavy-caliber machineguns, however, we should have. You can't arm a rebellion with the "Saturday night specials" used to rob take-out pizza restaurants.
I know that at first glance this sounds absurd, like I'm trying to write satire -- but I'm not. It's true that I'm not sure that I'm entirely serious, but I really do think that the logic is there.
"IMHO there is only one way we can help Obama be in a position to make good with his promise to remove immunity.
Elect him president."
Revealing your fundamental misunderstanding of how the US government works. As a senator, Obama could put a hold on the bill, do a REAL filibuster (think Strom Thurmond), or use parliamentary tactics. His leadership won't stop him, because an internal fight right now is the last thing the Dems need.
As President, he would be faced with a bill that has ALREADY passed, and....what? He can't retroactively veto it. He can demand Congress change the bill, but Presidential demands are variable in power - is he really willing to burn up that much clout over something that, now that he is in power, will be SOOO attractive to use?
If he cared about that provision, he could stop it now, instead of mouthing platitudes in January 2009.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Yet he's just another politician. In fact, I think his campaign has been the most calculatingly PR-driven of the bunch. The man doesn't even have a platform (yes, I've read his website), just a bunch of slogans involving abstract nouns.
Abstract nouns like "network neutrality"?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/#open-internet
Or "review of existing uses of our wireless spectrum"?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/#modern-communications
Or "a credit card rating system," and "Prohibit Interest on Fees"?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/#credit-cards
Or "exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses"?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/#bankruptcy
How about "new Teacher Service Scholarship"? Or "American Opportunity Tax Credit"?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/#teachers
I think it strains credibility to say he "doesn't even have a platform." Or to claim that you've read his website.
People say Obama's a great orator, too, but I don't even see that.
That's fine.
Honestly, I think they just think "black man = good speaker"
Really? Do you have any evidence to back this up? I mean, yeah, people find certain famous ministers, MLK in particular, inspiring, but I'd be willing to lay down serious money that a decent poll on a significant set of the US population would *not* show a general perception of black males being better public speakers than white males.
I'd be very interested to be pointed to information to the contrary.
I feel reasonably confident that I know what I would be voting for if I voted for McCain.
If my acquaintances who've worked in the senate are any indication, you probably don't. Several of them went in with respect for him, and found that when the cameras are off, he's a very different person. At minimum vindictive and tyranical, and quite possibly unstable.
This is commentary from senate staffers who worked for *Republicans*, not democrats.
Of course, this is a random guy on the internet saying stuff, and there's no way to verify it really, unless you have access to acquaintances in the same circles, or until somebody there risks upsetting their position in that circle by standing up and saying something about it.
For a comparison: When I saw Wesley Clark a few years earlier (when he was running for president), he gave a speech in which he outlined specific policy objectives, and reserved time at the end to answer questions. He understood what he was talking about!
I like Wesley Clark, and everything I've seen leads me to believe think he'd be a good choice in the White House, and I don't doubt he understands some policy domains (particularly the obvious foreign and military ones) far better than Obama does.
Obama has his own domains of policy expertise, however -- community economic development in particular -- and I think he's shown he knows how to pick people with real knowledge in underlying domains (see, for example, his choice of tech advisor vs McCain... and MIT prof vs an industry lawyer).
he need (1) for a Palestinian state, and (2) to engage the Palestinians. Yet recently at AIPAC, he swore he would not talk to HAMAS (exactly contradicting his previous promises of engagement) and that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided"
The AIPAC speech was a disaster, I think necessarily because Obama simultaneously doesn't want to abandon the Jewish constituency (and to some extent, zionist Christians) to McCain,
Tweet, tweet.
Voting Libertarian (esp. for U.S. President) is not a vote for the Libertarian candidate (after all, no Libertarian candidate for POTUS has any chance of being elected).
Instead, a vote for the Libertarian candidate is among the clearest messages one can send to the Dem/Rep parties of where there is a pool of voters they can actually attract if they adjust their approaches (or at least pretend to).
A libertarian voter should be realistic -- the best they can do now or in the near term is sway the views/actions of the mainstream candidates by voting for the Libertarian candidate.
Send a message to the losing party (Dem or Rep) in November by voting Libertarian. A vote for the Libertarian candidate is a vote for libertarian principles, not for whatever idiot the Libertarians picked this time around.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading