Reports from the House of Representatives indicate that the bill will not offer telecom immunity, but will allow judges in lawsuits agains telecoms, to view classified information to decide if the lawsuits have merit.
If Congress can explain this to the government, it will be Bush who must wipe the egg from his face.
In this version of the expanded FISA bill, Congress will give Bush and his corporate buddies at the telecoms the immunity they desire. But, in a parliamentary move, the bill will be split in two so that so-called "liberal" Democrats will be able to vote against immunity, while voting for the expanded FISA. According to the Washington Post:
This procedural move would allow many Democrats to vote against immunity but still make its approval all but certain, since almost every Republican and some centrist Democrats would vote in favor.
I called my reprentative Rosa Delauro's office yesterday to urge her to vote against the bill. Her staffed claimed not to know where she stands on the issue.
FISA, as it stands, gives the government all the power it needs to spy on terrorists, without having those taps leaking over the entire citizenship. Call your representative and hold them responsible, since they seem incapable of holding the criminal administration and its corporate cronies accountable.
It appears that the House of Representatives is about to buckle under pressure from the White House and deliver a Protect America Act with some kind of immunity for giant telecom companies which broke the law by spying on American citizens - lots of American citizens - most of who are not connected with terror or terrorism in any way.
President Bush would like us to believe that al-Qaeda hasn't figured out that our country is doing everything possible to listen to calls its members make. Excuse me, but I'd guess that Season 3 of The Wire is available even to Osama bin Laden.
Well, it certainly wouldn't give terrorists any more information than they could already guess.
But it would give the American citizens information about just how many of us have come under government surveillance. And that number could be high, as in, all of us.
And what would you call a government that spies on all of its citizens, hides the fact that it does, and then lies about it when they are caught? How's Oceania sound?
Of course, the right-wing radio ranters will chime: "Our way of life is at stake. We need to wiretap. If you're innocent, what do you have to hide"
Remember that, conservatives, when it's Barack Obama who's listening into your midnight chats.
You may count me as among those who are hopelessly naive as to believe that secrecy should be kept to a minimum in a Democracy.
Secrecy, inevitably, and proven historically, breeds corruption, lies, and a tendency toward autocracy.
So the fact that we have an FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security and god knows what other kind of super-secret organization spying on you, me and the rest of the world, is enough for me to doubt that the people at the top are abiding by agreed-upon laws, and protecting liberty.
So the fact that the Protect America Act has expired fills me with nothing less than joy. I don't believe the threat of terrorism is quite what it's made out to be. I don't believe the threat of militant Islamics is any more scary than the threat of militant Christians. I'm not nearly as scared as the President would like me to be.
Should we have any clandestine operations? Surely in a time of war, real war, we ought to practice counter-intelligence. Maybe, but only maybe, we ought to have standing investigative branches, but they should be limited, there should be strict oversight, and there needs to be an absolute time limit (five years, ten years), after which all secrets will be made public - no exception. That, in and of itself, will prevent agents of our government from doing things they might regret later.
Right now, the President, and his minions, are breathing fire about the terrorist threat, and the expiration of the Protect America Act. It's a sham. The terrorist threats that he rants about are as likely figments of his imagination as are those he's "revealed" in the past. He says that the NSA is hamstrung in its ability to wiretap. Wrong again, the original FISA law enables them still to do just that, with a court order (after-the-fact if needs be).
So what's all the bellyaching? Got to protect the telecoms. Mike McConnell reiterated that fact this weekend. And why? Well, if the telecoms get dragged into court, so does the administration. And if the administration has to reveal their wiretapping secrets, well, then the shit hits the fan.
Fascism, that is. Keith Olbermann called George Bush a fascist for demanding that a law be passed to protect telecom corporations from lawsuits for breaking the law. It's a comprehensive, and pithy commentary, but complex. The advice I'd give Olbermann is to consider eliminating a few of the descriptive adjectives, the colorful nouns, and the flamboyant verbs he uses to describe the president and his actions, because, sometimes the message is hard to follow.
When Olbermann calls Bush's argument, "crap" it says it all.
Bush has been using fear as a stick to beat timid lawmakers into submission. He's been using fear to scare Americans. And it's crap, plain and simple. He, and the NSA, CIA and FBI have all the tools they need to spy on terrorists, legally. And even when they had those tools, they broke the law, and now they want absolution for themselves and for the corporations.
It's a bit of a walk through the fun house with our president. If he doesn't get his way, he invokes the monster around the corner, the specter in the old chest, the beast beneath the bed.
When the House of Representatives refused to his demand to immediately pass legislation which broadens the power of the government to spy on its citizens, and protects, retroactively, telecom companies which broke the law at his behest, he conjures up the scariest image he can imagine:
“At this moment,” he said, “somewhere in the world terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison.”
Oh, mommy.
Bush has usually reserved these scare tactics as misdirections for the various feeble attacks the press has made on his lawless administration. Or he's pulled a boogeyman out of his hat when he needed to bolster votes to support his futile and endless war in Iraq.
The Bush administration has run on the fuel of fear, and the Republicans have been pumping the high octane combustibles. But it isn't horsepower, it's horseshit.
Yeah, like you I was feeling a little shaky that he Protect America Act was going to expire on February 1.
After all, how would we know who the untrustworthy amongst us were if they weren't tapping our phones.
Now it seems that those grating statesmen, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and George Bush have agreed to extend our protection against terrorist monsters (actually extend our ability to eavesdrop on the party line), and to protect us good muhricans against the fear of terror.
The campaign has begun to encourage Democratic presidential candidates to support Chris Dodd in his fight against telecom immunity in the Protect America Act (FISA). Here's what Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald have sent along:
John Edwards should challenge his rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to go back to Washington, DC and fight against retroactive immunity for the telecoms.
The Republicans are not going to let Harry Reid punt and extend the Protect America Act for another 18 months so it looks like the FISA bill is going to come back up again on Monday. Chris Dodd's objection to Unanimous Consent still stands, so they will pick up in the middle of the Motion to Proceed debate.
Without the help of the presidential candidates, we are doomed to lose this fight. And all their calls for change will ring hollow if they allow George Bush to railroad this bill through a supine Democratic-controlled Senate because of their absence.
You can email Senator Edwards directly at john@johnedwards.com.
Cheers,
Jane Hamsher & Glenn Greenwald
Here's what I sent in my email to John Edwards:
Senator Edwards:
I know you know how totally George Bush has screwed up America. And I know you agree that it's time to take it back.
You are in the perfect position to insist that your colleagues and opposing candidates in the run for President support your former Senatorial colleague Chris Dodd, and my senator, in his fight against the flawed FISA bill.
Technically you can't stand by Dodd's side and filibuster this bill which strips liberties from Americans, and rewards lawbreaking by major corporations. But you can make it an issue which your opponents have to respond to.
I urge you to make the FISA bill a major issue, because it is. According to an ACLU poll, two-thirds of American voters think that the telecomm immunity provided by the FISA, or as it's euphemistically titled, Protect America Act, is wrong.
Please voice your concerns immediately. The bill will likely come to the floor of the Senate next week.
I will be more than happy to support you, if you support Chris Dodd.
Of course, the problem is that Mike McConnell was allowed to make his argument in the New York Times, and Chris Dodd had to respond on Huffington Post. That's the mainstream liberal media for you.
