(For those that don't know, the President believes he can spy on millions of Americans WITHOUT A WARRANT and even if we sue telecommunications companies for violations of privacy, the bill Bush AND WEBB wants would retroactively make legal these unconstitutional violations of privacy. The House, so far, is standing firm, but may well crumble soon.)
The staffer said Webb tried to vote against telecom immunity but then supported the overall bill.
I reminded the staffer that Webb voted AGAINST the Dodd amendment stripping immunity. He said, "Oh yeah. I can't explain that. We'll send you a letter on it."
I gave him my name and address and then asked what the heck we needed the bill for anyway.
He said, "I'm not a lawyer but the intelligence community thought the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was 'cumbersome.'" (This is the existing law that allows a secret court to approve warrants. They approve over 99% and even allow you to spy first and get retroactive approval later. That wasn't good enough, because the President does not want ANY OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER. And that's what Webb voted for today.)
I said, "Yup, civil liberties are cumbersome. It would be a lot simpler if we just executed everyone the President thought was a bad guy, but we have cumbersome things called 'trials.' I said that things like due process are what made us different from places like old Communist East Germany.
He said that FISA was outdated. I asked how so. He said it didn't include wireless and email. I said that's not the point. No one is complaining about giving a secret court to power to monitor wireless and email if you HAVE PROBABLE CAUSE AND A WARRANT AS THE FOURTH AMENDMENT REQUIRES.
I asked him if the bill would allow the President to simply listen in to the conversations of his political enemies, to do wirelessly what Nixon did at Watergate. He said no. I said why not. He said it's not the "spirit of the bill."
I reminded him the "spirit of the bill" doesn't count. It's the letter of the law. The law says the President can't torture, and he still does it. That's why we need express language that a warrant is required. Either that or abolish the meaningless Fourth Amendment.
I asked him how the LAW prevented unlimited spying by the Government on all American citizens a la East Germany. He said he wasn't a lawyer and didn't know. I told him I WAS a lawyer, and asked someone from his staff who WAS a lawyer and WAS familiar with the bill to call me back. He said he'd send me a letter (but did take a phone number so I hope the lawyer calls me).
I said I'd raise the issue with Webb himself.
I also said if Webb's staff has no idea why Webb voted the way he did, perhaps Webb has no idea why he voted the way he did, and urged him to stand fast to defend the House bill (the one that obeys the Constitution).
I'm very disappointed in our Senator and I need everyone's help while there's still time.
1) Call 202-225-3121
2) Say you're a Virginia voter and you believe in the Fourth Amendment and you want to know why Webb supports the Government spying on American citizens without a warrant or any court oversight whatsoever.
3) If they say, "the bill doesn't allow this," ask him specifically how if there's no court oversight. Ask them if they trust George Bush only to spy on "terrorists" and if it's only "terrorists," than what's wrong with court oversight and probable cause as the Constitution requires?
4) Ask if Webb respects his oath to uphold the Constitution or does he consider it "optional."
5) State in the strongest possible terms that you expect Webb to filibuster this bill or any other attempt to override the Constitution. If he doesn't like the Bill of Rights, he should seek to amend the Constitution and change it lawfully.
6)Leave your name and number, and ask them to contact you regarding Webb's position oh the House bill.
Only if about 100 of you call can we expect to change Webb's mind. He's drinking the Kool-Aid when he says that complying with the Bill of Rights is "cumbersome." Heck, it's worked for over 200 years....
PLEASE CALL NOW!
1. Foreign Policy, esp. Iraq
2. Economic Fairness
3. Protecting the Constitution
Where's Webb's action against signing statements? Where's his action on the politicization of the DOJ? We can't even ask about Impeachment, but when he abandons the 4th Amendment to the "Unitary Executive", I'm done giving him the benefit of the doubt.
But why he wasn't at the JJ is rather trivial. Anything could have come up to prevent his coming.
Would it have been trivial if Kaine had missed? A Senator is as powerful or more powerful than the governor.
That's more important than who he gladhands.
Where exactly does that put our beloved Senator?
Voting for something in hopes that the House will do better is nothing more than buckpassing.
Voting for something because President Lying Criminal claims he'd rather expose us all to terrible risks than compromise is irresponsible.
In December, Senator Webb believes retroactive immunity should be removed from the bill and signs off on Feingold's letter to Reid urging him to do so: http://www.commondreams.org/ne...
Now, Senator Webb votes against Dodd's amendment to remove retroactive immunity from the bill. Next, Senator Webb issues a statement urging the Senate to remove retroactive immunity from the bill by adopting the House version of the bill:
http://www.raisingkaine.com/sh...
In common web parlance, WTF?
Mark Levine suggests: "perhaps Webb has no idea why he voted the way he did." It's possible. Perhaps he mistakenly believed he was voting on something else. Often, members of the House and Senate have to rely on their staff members to "jury-rig" a system "to help [them] figure out what the hell [they are] actually voting on as each amendment pops up." See: http://men.style.com/gq/featur...
This vote certainly could've been a mistake.
In any event, I agree with those who believe the issue is important enough to require an explanation that makes sense.
With Webb, for better or worse, I think you have a person who votes with what he thinks is right. Sometimes that costs him politically.
That is much better than a person who has a revolving door of corporate lobbyists on his staff and always answers to them.
Webb has been strong on Iraq, VERY strong on economic fairness, and frankly I don't think this bill is Unconstitutional. I think how the President behaves is. Could this bill had stronger language? Sure - but what makes you think the President would obey the law?
We already have a law that is very clear on this issue, and the President disregards that. If you have a problem with that, you need to call for impeachment. Spying without a warrant and authorizing waterboarding could be considered high crimes and misdemeanors.
Or you can wait 9 months for the problem to resolve itself.
A person who occasionally makes decisions you think are bad, or a person who always makes decisions that will benefit special interests?
But since Webb says he believes in the right thing and then votes against his own beliefs, what are we to think?
Why would a man vote against his own beliefs? Is it payoff? cowardice? misinformation? Frankly we don't know. And most importantly, WEBB REFUSES THUS FAR TO TELL US.
On the Constitutionality of the bill, I refer you to the actual Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. That's right. (Gasp!) I've actually read it!
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
NO Warrants shall issue
to search our persons, papers, and effects
(obtain our private communications)
UNLESS
you have "probable cause"
(that is, you make a showing to a judge of reasonable suspicion that we've done something wrong)
SUPPORTED by Oath or Affirmation
(you have to swear to it and if you're wrong, there are perjury violations)
AND PARTICULARLY DESCRIBING exactly what's being searched.
Can anyone make an argument that the bill Webb voted for WAS Constitutional?
Certainly Webb can't. Which is why his office thus far refuses to return my calls and emails.
Instead they've asked me to remove my posts from Raising Kaine. I've said I'll do so when I get an explanation as to why Webb voted as he did.
I'm still waiting.
Which is why his office thus far refuses to return my calls and emails.Instead they've asked me to remove my posts from Raising Kaine. I've said I'll do so when I get an explanation as to why Webb voted as he did.
Seriously? Please do share.
Thus far they have not called me back.
If they don't call me by tomorrow, I'll write here all the gory details. I'll withhold them for now in the hopes that they will actually dignify me with a phone call.
In fact, since I know they read this blog, it should be a tremendous incentive for them to call me back and do some constituent service.
I've let them know that my television show at 7 pm on Monday will be devoted to this bill and that it serves 1/3 of Virginians. (It's in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William (live - Channel 10) and Arlington and Alexandria (delayed - Channel 69)).
You'd think that would get a response.
I'm still waiting.
(In sum, Sui Juris, if they don't call me by tomorrow, I'll tell you.)
I won't give Webb a free pass on this one vote though. I've written to him and I'm looking forward to hearing what his explanation is.
Would anyone here really want to be held to the standard the self-appointed guardians of the Constitution in this forum have established? And for all the people whining about the JJ Dinner, would it have even been an issue if he had voted your way on FISA? Because if it wouldn't, then to clump it together with the FISA vote is just unfairly piling on.
And now with one vote, he gives Bush a free pass to violate and cover up violations of the Bill of Rights! That's serious stuff. Especially when he has yet to explain why! This is not just "once piece of legislation."
I agree, however, that whether he attends the JJ dinner or not should not be lumped into the FISA vote. Apples and Oranges. The FISA vote is serious. The failure to uphold the rule of law is serious. His failure to explain is more serious.
I won't share in the complaints about the JJ dinner. No big deal, as far as I'm concerned.
Obama's Wiretap Votes
February 13, 2008; Page A26
Now and then sanity prevails, even in Washington. So it did yesterday as the Senate passed a warrantless wiretap bill for overseas terrorists while killing most of the Lilliputian attempts to tie down our war fighters."We lost every single battle we had on this bill," conceded Chris Dodd, which ought to tell the Connecticut Senator something about the logic of what he was proposing. His own amendment -- to deny immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that cooperated with the government after 9/11 -- didn't even get a third of the Senate. It lost 67-31, though notably among the 31 was possible Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. (Hillary Clinton was absent, while John McCain voted in favor.)
It says something about his national security world view, or his callowness, that Mr. Obama would vote to punish private companies that even the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee said had "acted in good faith." Had Senator Obama prevailed, a President Obama might well have been told "no way" when he asked private Americans to help his Administration fight terrorists. Mr. Obama also voted against the overall bill, putting him in MoveOn.org territory.
The defeat of these antiwar amendments means the legislation now moves to the House in a strong position. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the Dodd-Obama camp, but 21 Blue Dog Democrats have sent her a letter saying they are happy with the Senate bill. She may try to pass the restrictions that failed in the Senate, and Republicans should tell her to make their day. This is a fight Senator McCain should want to have right up through Election Day, with Democrats having to explain why they want to hamstring the best weapon -- real-time surveillance -- we have against al Qaeda.
It is really bad when you find the very Republican WSJ agreeing with Webb and criticizing Obama on the same subject.... Something doesn't make sense here???
I'm 100% with Mark and Sui Juris on this, and I'm going to expand my thoughts in a diary as to why this is so important by the weekend. WE ABSOLUTELY DESERVE AN EXPLANATION FROM SENATOR WEBB.
I'm sorry, but this issue is not that difficult to understand if one wants to, in spite of the lies by the Wall Street Journal (and just to be clear Used2Bneutral, I'm not calling you out, I'm just springboarding off your post).
The right wing reactionaries would like to frame this debate like the 3rd paragraph of this WSJ piece. Look at that second sentence, "Had Senator Obama prevailed, a President Obama might well have been told "no way" when he asked private Americans to help his Administration fight terrorists." Oh? Fascinating, apparently we ARE all Unitary Citizens now that may just simply disregard subpoenas and laws. What a bunch of lies. Any time, ANY TIME, the government has probably cause and needs to tap a US citizen's phone or communications and OBTAINS A PROPER JUDICIAL SUBPOENA, the phone and telecom companies MUST allow those communications to be tapped. There's no opting out from a subpoena if you are a private citizen (unless you happen to be a staffer for George W Bush's White House, for some reason) or if you are a private company.
The Protect America Act is the most atrocious piece of legislation to come out of this Congress, one of the most unconstitutional acts to EVER be passed by a Congress -- but we agreed to let bygones be bygones because it was "temporary".
Anybody that makes the false equivalence that we have to sacrifice our 4th Amendment liberties in order to wiretap fanatics in Pakistan is misinformed, lying, or stupid. It IS that simple. The government already has the power to pre-emptively tap communications for up to 72 hours under revisions to FISA that came before the PAA.
The other part of this story that has never been asked is, what, exactly, prompted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to issue opinions that the tapping of foreign-to-foreign calls that proceed through US switches now requires warrants in order to be tapped? If this was merely a technical ruling, it is easily fixed. However, I believe there is a very good chance that the court issued this ruling because THE ADMINISTRATION WAS ABUSING THE FISA LAW by collecting intelligence on Americans in a dragnet fashion.
The law-breaking here is of an immense scale that may never have been seen in this country. Bush, et al, are trying to cover their tracks as the leave the stage. This cannot stand. Senator Webb needs to fully explain why he wants to be a part of this coverup.
I completely agree with Ron1 above. This needs to be answered, and answered well. As in thoroughly.
Weakening the 4th Amendment is unacceptable.
However, I believe you're mistaken about one point -- the amnesty specifically indemnifies conduct only between 9/11/01 and 1/17/07. Why? I have no idea, maybe that's all they figure they can get away with, and maybe the other wiretapping is already beyond the statute of limitations (however I don't believe it is).
That's what the heart of the immunity provision is about -- we need to find out what in the hell has been done, and hold those people accountable for the gross illegal misconduct.
Note: I have a suspicion that one of the reasons the 9/11 plot was not discovered in time was BECAUSE this illegal program was going on. With too much data coming into the system, there was too much noise and it was too difficult to identify the true threats. Not only is it illegal and not only does it infringe upon our liberties, but I believe it makes us much less safe.
It also shows his intent was to abuse power form "Day One' (the new most "important" day in a presidential term). Ask all the current candidates...
There are a number of problems with Webb's position as I understand it, but I want very much to talk about it with Webb's legal staff to understand Webb's position before I characterize it. I'm still trying to get them to call me tomorrow.
If they call me tomorrow, I will post Webb's full position here.
If they don't call me tomorrow, I'll post our email exchanges.
Dodd's amendment, S. Amdt. 3907, which Jim Webb voted against, was brief and to the point -- it struck Title II from S.2248 from the act.
Here's the link for Title II:
In Section 202, the law states:
(e) Rule of Construction - Nothing in this section may be construed to limit any otherwise available immunity, privilege, or defense under any other provision of law.
[BTW, just read this entire section, and your jaw should drop and your blood should boil. It's the essence of ex post facto-style legislation, wherein a favored party is indemnified by the Congress choosing to pick sides in a judicial contest. The judiciary is completely emasculated by this egregious legislation, completely in contradiction to the separation of powers mandated by our Constitution.]
As we know, the original FISA already contains provisions that protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits and provide qualified immunity when surveillance is conducted under a warrant.
---
In summary, Webb's spokesperson is wrong. The question is, is he/she merely misinformed, or being mendacious?
I invite people to follow the link to Title II above and continue reading. It allows ALL suits in federal or state court against telecoms that broke the pre-existing FISA law to be thrown out ON THE SAY SO OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, and it prevents anything from being said in open court by a representative of the AG invoking the state secrets privilege. In my opinion, the entire Title II is as unconstitutional as legislation comes, and would be as great a ceding of the principle of due process of law as I can imagine.
What does this bill do that's good that FISA as already amended doesn't?
Specifically....
I don't have time to research the whole issue for you. I've got a basic call I made based on my preliminary review of the legislation and my understanding of how carefully Jim Webb considers his actions before he commits to them. This may be your life, and maybe you've got tons of time for it, but I'm about through with the argument. You can take it or leave it at your will. I still have to earn a living and it doesn't involve FISA.
The message this gives to the one phone company that did not cooperate with government law breaking is that your stand for following the law doesn't matter.
Further, by voting to make what was illegal, legal, Senator Webb is complicit with the President's violation of constitutional protection of privacy. Webb certainly knows the President's history of employing abusive power. As the old mountain story goes, "You knowed I was a snake when you picked me up."
The staffer responded in a frustrated and defensive manner.
I hope that the office receives hundreds more calls over the next few days. The toll-free Capitol switchboard is 1-866-340-9281. Ask the operator to switch you to Sen. Webb's office.
So glad my candidate Obama felt the obligation to break away from the campaign to fight this terribly intrusive and dangerous precedent-setting legislation.
I live in the infamous Ninth District. We may have voted wrong in the primary, but one thing we can count on is that Rep. Rick Boucher will strongly oppose retroactive immunity and extension of presidential power in FISA. He is extremely alert to erosion of civil liberties. Boucher voted against the original Patriot Act, it's renewal, and against erosive FISA legislation earlier.
I want Webb or someone on his staff to explain to me exactly how this law protects our security beyond what FISA already does.
Can you do that, Catzmaw? Please cite chapter and verse of the law. What it specifically protects that FISA doesn't.
Then we can apply the balancing test:
A)the benefits of the law (I haven't found any but I'm all ears if Catzmaw or Webb's staff will show me)...
versus
B) the serious problems that it abolishes the Fourth Amendment protections for any of Bush's spying activities by giving him and his minions (i.e. telecoms) permanent retroactive immunity and secrecy so we can never know what he did and never fight it in a court of law.
But you can't apply a balancing test if there are no benefits and only the defects (that Webb has, to his credit, acknowledged).
So what are the benefits?
I'm listening.
I may even agree.
But I'd like to hear them first....
Webb?
Legal staff?
Catzmaw?
Anybody?
Hellllloooooooo.......
After speaking at length on the Senate floor and keeping the Senate in session late into the evening last night, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) took to the Senate floor one last time before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act was passed by the Senate. Calling today a "dark" day in the Senate chamber, Dodd expressed his profound opposition to the provisions in the legislation that grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have participated in the Administration's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. Along with Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dodd offered an amendment to strip the egregious retroactive immunity provisions from FISA. Unfortunately, the amendment failed by a vote of 31 to 67 and the Senate voted 68 - 29 to pass the legislation.
In his address, Dodd made clear that this debate was about more than just retroactive immunity-that it was about the rule of law. Dodd asked his colleagues to put an end to the continuing litany of abuses of the rule of law by this Administration:
"I have fought so long against retroactive immunity because, in this huge fabric of lawlessness, it was the closest thread to grab. I believed that if we grabbed hold and pulled, it would begin to unravel. That hasn't happened, Mr. President. But if we believe that each assault against the rule of law was an accident, that each was isolated, we're deluding ourselves. If the past is any guide, there will be another one. And hope, as they say, springs eternal. I hope we will stand up then."
Acknowledging that his views against retroactive immunity were in the minority, Dodd still expressed hope that that the rule of law will prevail:
"The law in America is not a gift or an inheritance-it is the active work of every generation. And as America's patience wears thinner and thinner, as more and more citizens take up that active work, our minority will-I have faith that it will-make itself a majority.
Senator Dodd made clear his intentions to move the fight to the expected conference agreement between the House and Senate negotiators. The House previously passed a FISA bill that does not contain retroactive immunity and Dodd said he would use whatever tools were available to him, including forcing a cloture vote and taking to the Senate floor to implore his colleagues to stand with him, to try to stop a conference report that retains the retroactive immunity provision.
The full text of Senator Dodd's speech as prepared is below:
Mr. President.
It is clear now that the Senate will approve retroactive immunity for the corporations that may have helped President Bush to illegally spy on millions of Americans. I've fought this day with everything I had in me-and I haven't fought alone. Many, many average Americans have given me strength for this fight-strength that comes from the passion and eloquence of citizens who don't have to be involved, but choose to be. They deserve to be noted today, in honor.
But today, when I speak in the Senate against this immunity, and for the rule of law, I am speaking for a minority. And respecting the rule of law anywhere means respecting it everywhere-even when it means we don't win. The rule of law says that we, the minority, cannot stand forever; and having made our case with all the fire in us, we stand down.
I will say this, though. I have seen some dark days in this chamber; in my mind, one of the worst was September 28, 2007: the day the Senate voted to strip habeas corpus and tolerate torture. Today, February 12, 2008, is nearly as dark: the day the Senate voted to ensure secrecy and to exempt corporations from the law. Frankly, I've seen a lot of darkness in recent years, as one by one our dearest traditions of Constitutional governance have been attacked.
At each new attack, millions of Americans have stood up in outrage; but millions more have answered with patience. You might fault them for that, Mr. President; but I do not. More than two centuries of democratic tradition have nurtured that patience; and it speaks well of our democratic faith that so many take the rule of law in America as a given. If millions have not yet noticed the rule of law falling, that is because it has so far to fall.
But fall it will, if we remove our support. The law in America is not a gift or an inheritance-it is the active work of every generation. And as America's patience wears thinner and thinner, as more and more citizens take up that active work, our minority will-I have faith that it will-make itself a majority.
But today was not the day. And so the Senate has signed its name to this immunity, this silencing of our courts, this officially-sanctioned secrecy-without a majority of us even laying eyes on the secret papers that are supposed to prove the president's case. Retroactive immunity is a disgrace in itself; in the last months, I believe we've proved that beyond a doubt. But it is even more disgraceful in all that it represents. It is the mindset that the Church Committee summed up so eloquently three decades ago: "the view that the traditional American principles of justice and fair play have no place in our struggle against the enemies of freedom."
That view created the Nixonian secrecy of the 1970s; and the Church Committee wrote those words, in part, as a rebuke to our predecessors in this chamber who for years let secrecy and executive abuses slide. But today those words take on a new meaning. Today they rebuke us. They shame us for our lack of faith that we can, at the same time, keep our country safe and our Constitution whole.
When the 21st century version of the Church Committee convenes to investigate the abuses of these past years, how will it judge us? When it reads through the records of our debates-not if, Mr. President; when-what will it find?
When the president asked us to repudiate the Geneva Conventions and strip away the right of habeas corpus, how did we respond?
When images of American troops tormenting detainees were broadcast around the world, how did we protest?
When stories of secret prisons and outsourced torture became impossible to deny, how did we resist?
And on February 12, 2008, when we were asked to put corporations explicitly outside the law and accept at face value the argument that some are literally too rich to be sued-how did we vote?
All of those questions are coming for us, Mr. President. All of them and more. And in the quiet of his or her own conscience, each senator knows what the answers are.
I have fought so long against retroactive immunity because, in this huge fabric of lawlessness, it was the closest thread to grab. I believed that if we grabbed hold and pulled, it would begin to unravel. That hasn't happened, Mr. President. But if we believe that each assault against the rule of law was an accident, that each was isolated, we're deluding ourselves. If the past is any guide, there will be another one. And hope, as they say, springs eternal. I hope we will stand up then.
And perhaps we'll have the chance to do so very soon. As you know, the House of Representatives has passed a version of this bill without retroactive immunity. It will be the job of the House-Senate conference committee to reconcile the two versions of the bill. And before I stand down, I want to implore the members of that committee, in the strongest terms I can find, to strip retroactive immunity from this bill once and for all.
Remember: This is about more than a few telephone calls, a few companies, a few lawsuits. If the supporters of retroactive immunity keep this small, they win. In truth, the issue we've debated for these last months, the issue that will finally come to a head in the conference committee, is so much more. At stake is our latest answer to the defining question: the rule of law, or the rule of men?
That question never goes away. As long as there are free societies, generations of leaders will struggle mightily to answer it. And each generation must answer for itself; just because our Founders answered it correctly doesn't mean that we are bound by their choice. In that, as in all decisions, we are entirely free; the whole burden falls on us.
But we can take counsel. We can listen to those who came before us and made the right choice, even when our nation's very survival was at risk. They knew that the rule of law was far more rooted in our character than any one man's lawlessness.
I don't think that's changed. Secure in that faith, I will sit down and end my part in this conversation. But when the question comes again-the question of the rule of law or the rule of men-in whatever guise it comes, I'll be proud to stand up once more.
I yield the floor.
The problem is the Bush Administration's abuse of the 4th amendment, and I can only hope that Jim Webb was told something and, hope he was given assurances that if he voted for the bill, there would be restraints on the eavesdropping that would bring it back within the 4th amendment in spite of "loosening" FISA's requirements.
I don't want to be wiretapped without a judge saying I SHOULD be wiretapped, AND THAT IS WHY You A**holes who like to play with words and never were in danger of "buying the farm" in a foreign land should LAY OFF JIM WEBB until he says what he wants to say. As an Army guy, I didn't vote for a Marine because I like their cute uniforms, I want a Senator who may, fom time to time, REALLY PISS ME OFF because he has to vote against the way I wanted him to vote, BECAUSE he has been given classified backgound briefings that he believes, through his Colin Powell filter are true, and that is enough for me.
Stop justifying his vote on what the totally uninformed George Allen would have done. STOP pissing in his hat for one vote that he may never be able to explain given his oath. TRUST Webb that he will never vote to protect Bush and the Chaney Administration.
I will stand by Jim; my last 6 years of military service were with the National Security Agency Headquarters at Fort Meade, Md, and I've had more than a taste of how my rights as a citizen are protected by the workers at NSA, the political bosses be damned. Someone must have told him something or I'm sure he would have voted no-way.
We have a lame duck president and I hope his signing statements and other pronouncements hit the history books sooner, rather than later.
Stay with Jim Webb! As a Senator, he knows what we don't!I think that if whatever he was told about FISA in SECRET turns out to be untrue, he'll be a man of integrity and on it like stink on shit.
I don't know whether Dodd heard all of what Webb heard, but I do know that you have two distinctly different sets of ears between them. Dodd is the former Peace Corps volunteer non-military type. He's not a strategic thinker but more an ideological champion of our Constitutional system. He may hear or see the same evidence as Webb is hearing and come to a different conclusion about where the balance should be struck. Webb, on the other hand, is at heart a military and strategic thinker who also has an enormous appreciation of our Constitutional system. But he thinks in practicalities about how we can achieve the goal of protecting our citizenry from harm. Dodd feels we can do without this legislation entirely. I listened to his argument a few days ago and thought he did very well. Webb feels we have to have this legislation, which is why he was willing to suck it up and let the telecom thing go, just so the legislation could stay alive and it could go to committee. He feels it's dangerous not to have it and Dodd feels it is not.
Wow, looks like we have an honest disagreement here instead of an attempt "abolish the Constitution" and "destroy the Fourth Amendment." But I guess it's more fun to demonize him.
We have a right to know Webb's reasons.
And Pelosi seems to be standing firm. Go Pelosi!!!
Now if only Webb would come out and say he will support her...
Virtually everyone I talk to in Congress believes it was a clearly unconstitutional emergency act designed just to give Bush what he wanted so that they could design a more effective bill.
If Webb supports the House bill, he does NOT support renewing this piece of trash. He just voted for the piece of trash (plus telecom immunity!) as a second-best option.
The best thing is to let the whole mess expire. Go back to the (cumbersome) FISA Act that allows you to do everything with a little more paperwork and wait for Bush to come around and recognize that Congress too has a role in crafting legislation.
Regarding the Republicans and appropriate language ... there isn't any. They do what Bush wants them to do. It's like all survival instincts in the species have been eliminated. Many of them will get what's coming to them this November, as well.
We need the House members in conference to hold strong and push for what's right, and then make the Senate Republicans filibuster it to prove their mendacity. The public ain't dumb.
This is a 6 year extension of the act, which will make it near permanent.
I'm actually pretty shocked to see the House display some backbone and not vote on the Senate's version AND vote to hold Bolten and Miers in contempt. Maybe there's hope after all.
Even though we disagree on the substance of much of this, we can both hope that the bill that emerges from Conference is much closer to the House version than the Senate's.
Maybe this whole 'election' deal is what's causing the House to act up -- they're all up for re-elect in November, versus just over a third of the Senate.
At their best, blogs can inform and educate. So have at it. I for one appreciate the back and forth. Except, let me say, that I get the feeling catzmaw hasn't used her best legal arguments. Though I agree with Mark here, on this occasion, I think legal interpretation, which you both are more than qualified to give, is great.
webb was not at jj because of family committments, prior. you know the jj date is not set in stone. done when they get speaker commits. last year they changed it so obama could be there but other speakers were dissed because of that. so chill.
he said that webb thought the telecoms did what they did in good faith.
That's not his job or role to make that determination -- that's a judicial finding. Lawsuits have been filed and are slowly being litigated by Americans using their due process rights to remedy their (our) civil rights being infringed upon. If those poor, poor telecoms acted in good faith, then they will not have any liability under FISA.
What a terrible precedent. Very, very disappointing.
The telecoms knew or should have known that what they were being asked to do was illegal. Recall that the one telecom that didn't cooperate, Qwest, figured it out:
Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
But since their response is, to put it mildly, disappointing, unless I hear from them quite soon, I will post their correspondence to me as I promised to do so all can see how disappointing it has been.
I'll give them another hour or so but that's it.
I expect to receive a lot of criticism for making public Webb's emails. But please know I've given them ample opportunity to meet and talk with me in private. And they just haven't done so.
All I'm seeking is an explanation.