Whither FISA?
First off, where in hell are Obama and Clinton? If you have no intention or interest in defending the rights of all Americans, why are you wasting everyone’s time running for the Democratic nomination for President? Stand up or go home, but stop pretending you care.
Everyone needs to remember that this is about amending the FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance Act. Anyone assisting the government in conducting FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance has multiple layers of protection in existing law and needs no more. I was once engaged in FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance, and there were a number of private companies that provided assistance in that effort. I don’t remember a single one of those corporations who did not find a way of mentioning their association in their share holder communications. What they were doing was totally legal, and, occasionally, actually useful in protecting the United States from FOREIGN threats.
The issue before the Senate, and the reason the telecoms are lobbying so furiously, is a program that the Hedgemony started in February, 2001 , almost as soon as they came into office, and while they were studiously ignoring the threat of terrorism. One telecom, QWest Communications told the Hedgemony that what they were suggesting was illegal, but the others went along. This wasn’t and isn’t about FOREIGN threats, it’s about intercepting the communications of Americans without the judicial oversight required by the Constitution.
Based on what the Republicans just did to Harry Reid, they don’t care about this bill for anything but campaign purposes. The Shrubbery has already started practicing the State of the Union speech written for him, and is obviously going to complain that the Democrats haven’t passed the FISA bill. The Republicans in the Senate have no intention of having any bill voted on until after the SOTU, if then, as they want to use this as an attack on the Democrats in the Fall.
My advice to Harry – stop running down the field, they are not going to let you kick that ball.
My advice to Obama and Clinton – since you don’t intend to lead and can’t seem to follow, get out of the way.
7 comments
…I keep seeing a lot of talk around the lefty side of blogtopia about the spinelessness and uselessness of the ‘so-called Democratic majority’ in Congress and I suspect that the problem isn’t so much that they are cowed by Bushco but instead that they are probably cowed by the MSM. We saw how things played out in ’00, the ’02 midterms, and 04 in terms of the media and the talking heads on radio, cable news, and broadcast channels shaping the discussion with earnest discussions about Gore’s “earthtone” clothes in ’00 and Draft Dodger Chambliss’ fragging of Max Cleland in ’02 over the Homeland Security vote and the Kerry swiftboating and all the carrying on about his windsurfing in ’04 (probably the stupidest single bit of punditry I have seen in the politically aware part of my somewhat more than half century on this planet; in the Pac NW windsurfing about as elitist as hunting because people from all across the economic spectrum do it)…
But I digress. Your basic point still stands; for whatever talk they’ve offered about standing up against the telecom immunity provisions that Gee Dub and Republicans are pushing, Barack and Hillary are so far missing in action on the actual battlefield. Every vote is going to count, and if they can’t – or won’t – see their way clear to scat on back to D.C. to take a stand on this issue, all the brave campaign rhetoric in the world will boil down to little more than cheap political chatter…
[and Qwest gets no pass from me; they have been in trouble in the west for years for sleazy and shoddy behavior and service. Their decision to say “hell no” to the Bush administration was spawned more out of the fear that they would be party to another in an exhausting series of lawsuits than some sort of patriotic sense of duty to their customers]
Jack, I have a friend who retired from the phone company that Qwest swallowed in Colorado, and I don’t even mention the name unless I want to listen to him delineate the atrocities of the company for a couple of hours. They raided his pension fund when they took over, and he is rightfully ticked off about it.
Qwest did, however, at least know they would be sued if they got involved, which is more than the other suck up telecoms.
The media and Repubs are going to attack them no matter what they do, so they may as well do right and get ready to launch the first assault, rather than counter-punching.
BTW, windsurfing is a hell of lot cheaper than a bass boat, and we don’t get the waves to make normal surfing worth bothering with.
Monday is the State of the Union, I would think they planned on attending because the media coverage will be focused there. They are still Senators, and should try to act like it.
The entire political blogosphere should combine to post your same message Monday morning: “Where in Hell Are Obama and Hillary?” And, I would add, Senator McCain all the rest.
Yes, Obama and Clinton need to be on the Senate floor and do their damn jobs. The root issue I see is the immunity provisions and I do not think the telecoms deserve it. They are already protected by multiple laws but if they (an it appears they did) abet the Shrub in spying on Americans in violation of FISA and the Constitution then they should have to defend themselve in a court of law.
It’s not just that they haven’t gone back to Washington, they haven’t even made a statement about the issue. They can’t even vote “present”, something that Obama has done with great frequency.
Yeah…and what are we teaching the “children?”. It’s OK to lie, cheat, steal, break the laws, etc. but, oh wait…it’s really, really bad and impeachable if you get a b.j.
All the “kids” are learning is that “It’s OK if you’re a Republican”.