Civil liberties disappear not with a bang, but a whimper

I don't understand, nor have I heard an adequate explanation, why the Democratic House and Senate is delivering George Bush exactly the FISA bill he wants.

It has to be that the Democratic senators and reps voting for it must either truly support the idea that the government can spy on whomever it damn well pleases, or their afraid of being accused of being soft on terrorism. In either case, it's confounding. Seriously confounding. Because the fourth amendment is being decimated.

Civil libertarians, and there are a few in the Senate - Feingold and Dodd, to name a few, are in jawdropping disbelief that our lawmakers would enact such a bill, and that they would hand George Bush, the most untrustworthy of presidents, power to immunize corporate lawbreakers, and at the same time, immunize himself, from prosecution. He and they broke the law once. Now they have the consent of the legislative branch. The most unbelievable part is that Democrats, including Barack Obama, are touting the FISA bill as a compromise. As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out for months, it is no such thing. It is a capitulation to the President and to Republicans.

Listen to Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, who appeared last night with Rachel Maddow on Hardball. He calls the impending vote a "cave-in."

Filibuster or bust

Russ Feingold says that he and Chris Dodd will filibuster the FISA amendment if it arrives on the Senate floor with telecom immunity intact.

We can only hope that Harry Reid will delay action on the bill until after the end of the year, but that being unlikely, given his track record, that Dodd and Feingold will stand and talk until the country hears what we're about to be fed.

Why Americans don't care about FISA

Chris Dodd is currently giving yet another impassioned speech about the faults of the FISA bill before Congress. He's calling this one of the darkest days he's seen in the Senate. The Senate is virtually empty. The media has buried the story. Fellow Democratic Senators have voted against limits on spying.

Why doesn't anyone care?

This is big-brotherism at its core. The federal government, abetted by the telecom industry is spying on us, one and all.

As Glen Greenwald indicates, one of the reasons is that many Democratic lawmakers actually support the "core value of our political establishment (as reflected by the Bush administration)." So, they can't be expected to vote against more power to the feds. In the same way, average Americans have been scared to death by the boogeyman of "terrorism" and so are ready to relinquish freedom for security.

The media doesn't care because they can't figure out a way to sell it to the world as an issue of importance. It's not a simple issue, nor a simple bill. But the base concept is simple. The Bush administration (the federal government/the political establishment) wants the ability to listen in to any of us, at any time, without an explanation.

If it interfered with America's ability to vote for American Idol. If an item suddenly appeared on our phone and cable bills, labeled "Spying....$30." If your cell coverage was suddenly limited to certain quadrants. Or, if your son or your daughter suddenly "disappeared" for having protested government actions, then America would begin to care.

FISA, fear and feckless politicians

The FISA bill is complex. The politics and parliamentary procedures surrounding the debate about FISA are an impenetrable thicket.

This is the way a lot of our elected officials like it. They like it most of all when you don't know what they're doing. They like it even better when you don't care.

These days, the press is abetting them.

But you can't afford to be discouraged into inaction. You can't be hobbled by the inability to parse the twists and turns of a Senate attempting to make bad law. You need to have the strength of mind to read the complicated dispatches from the few journalists and bloggers who care, and decide what you're going to do.

Read no further if you're comfortable with the idea that George Bush, or someone who works for him, could decide to spy on you, for no better reason that he dislikes you politically, or that your company competes with his friend's company, or that you don't like Jesus, or that he doesn't like your blog, or your song, or your TV show. And once they assemble enough "evidence" to trump up a case, they'll need to label you, or your brother, or your daughter a terrorist, who needs to be whisked away to a secret prison for "harsh interrogation." And if you think it can't happen here, brother, it's already happened here.

The FISA law has been around for four decades. It allows the government, with court approval (after the fact when necessary), to eavesdrop on calls when terrorism is suspected.

The Bush administration, trusting that fear will create absolution, have misused the law, eavesdropping on millions and millions of phone calls and emails, trolling for terror where no terror exists. Some really big telecommunications companies helped them break the law.

The Bush administration has acted outside the letter of the law, and the Constitution. And now the Bush administration wants Congress to pass a law which says it's okay for them to act that way in the future, and it was swell of them to have acted that way in the past.

Some in Senate don't want to give this president, or any president that kind of power, because that kind of power leads to abuse.

The president, and those who support him, want to give the telecommunications companies immunity after the fact for helping the government break the law. On the surface it seems like the president wants to help the poor telecommunications companies from losing truckloads of money in lawsuits. In reality, the president wants to prevent the lawsuits from coming to court where judges will discover just how much outside of the law law the president, and his minions, stepped.

On Monday, Republicans in the Senate will try to force a vote to end debate on the FISA bill, which includes immunity for telecommunications companies. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd said he will filibuster to prevent that vote, and to prevent the immunity clause. He is supported by Democrats like Feingold, and Kennedy. And now even the Senator without a backbone ("Watch him fold. Watch him bend.") is encouraging the filibuster, not because he thinks the law is particularly bad, but because the Republicans double-crossed him, and he's mad as four year old who hasn't gotten his way.

On Monday, our useless president delivers his last State of the Union address in which he will likely heap scorn on Congress for not passing FISA, and leaving the country adrift on a sea of terror.

On Monday, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be in Washington for the SOTU, and therefore in the Senate for the filibuster, or the vote. We will be able to witness the strength of their vertebrae.

So read up. There's a lot to know, and it's your duty as a voting citizen.

Glenn Greenwald on Jay Rockefellers abdication of responsibility.
Christy Hardin Smith on the Republican desire for failure, and some phone numbers for you to call.
Ryan Singel on a press that doesn't get it.
Chris Dodd on why the FISA bill is wrong.
Tim Tagaris on the ugly details of the politics.
Russ Feingold on Senate Republicans.
The New York Times on how close George Bush is to getting his way.

Dodd: second choice integrity in Iowa

Chris Dodd has shown an enormous amount of integrity throughout his uphill campaign in Iowa. Many, including me, have said that he's tilting at windmills.

In Iowa, where the second tier candidates have begun to strike deals on the second choice votes in the caucus, idealogues like Dennis Kuchinich, have succumbed to dealing. In the caucuses, if your candidate does not reach the 15% threshold of caucus voters, those votes are able to migrate to other candidates. Some of these below-threshold candidates have begun to encourage their supporters to vote for specific candidates. For example, Kuchinich has thrown his second choice votes to Barack Obama.

Here's what Chris Dodd had to say yesterday.

Reid out, Dodd in?

It's a nice thought.

Harry Reid has been over his head since he took the reins of the Senate.

But why didn't someone think of this a long time ago.