RSSSenate Accord with President Could Mean Immunity for Telcos
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published October 18, 2007, 3:55 PM
The number of political parties doing business in Congress was nearly called into question today, as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D - Vt.) railed against Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman - and fellow Democrat - Jay Rockefeller (D - W.V.) for, according to The Hill this afternoon, "caving" to the wishes of the President. Sen. Leahy's comments come following the announcement that Republican and Democratic senators including Rockefeller had reached an agreement with Mr. Bush late last night on substitute language for amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
As senators announced this morning following a White House meeting, a bipartisan agreement would amend the Senate's version of the RESTORE Bill. One new provision would grant telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution by individuals who believe their personal data may have been inadvertently turned over to US government officials, in the course of federal investigations. During a press conference on Wednesday, the President stated he would veto any FISA legislation that omitted such a provision.
In exchange, the Washington Post reported this morning, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would conduct an audit and review of past government practices in so-called "warrantless surveillance programs." The newly agreed to language has yet to be reported by the Library of Congress, so it is not clear yet whether the compromise bill contains the House version's restrictions limiting warrantless surveillance to "non-US persons."
But that House version now appears stalled, as word of the accord reached enough House Democrats late last night for them to withhold debate on the bill, which had been scheduled for today.
Speaking prior to the continuation of hearings for Attorney General-nominee Judge Michael Mukasey, Sen. Leahy said he believed the administration must be fully aware of the illegality of conduct he says it was involved in, allegedly including utilizing FISA under false pretenses to gather information on US citizens. "Otherwise there wouldn't be so much pressure on us to immunize illegal conduct by either people acting within our government or within the private industry," he said.
Despite the accord, the amended language may need to garner the approval of the Judiciary Committee before it can proceed to the Senate floor for a vote. But indications were today that Democrats were not united behind Leahy, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D - Calif.) indicated her tentative approval of the agreement, if only for the fact that it's bipartisan.
Regardless of the President's recently low approval ratings, his tried and tested divide-and-conquer approach, as seen in Wednesday's press conference, appears to remain quite effective.
Sounds like those times when Congress went on a witch hunt for Communists and wrongfully accused many loyal Americans. Today, it is a witch hunt for terrorists.
It seems to me that it is highly likely that members of Congress and loyal Americans have been wrongfully flagged as terrorists, simply to ascertain an excuse to monitor their ordinary communications, political agenda’s, etc.
For example, it’s possible that BetaNews has been flagged as a terrorist organization. But it will take years of monitoring before it is decided to be a waste of time monitoring their communications..
It will take years before those members of Congress that oppose the Bush Administration to be unflaged. Same with movie directors like Range, Michael Moore, etc....
Wonder how many secrets, treacherous and immoral information has been ascertained by the NSA and not terroristic. Certainly, the information is too valuable for it to be simply ignore and disregarded.
The question is what was initially promised to the Telco's for their treachery. Remember, it was a whistle blower that exposed the illegal acts to us and Congress.
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|Sounds like those times when Congress went on a witch hunt for Communists and wrongfully accused many loyal Americans. Today, it is a witch hunt for terrorists.
Really? I don't see many Americans being accused of being terrorists. Maybe I'm just in the wrong part of the country?
It seems to me that it is highly likely that members of Congress and loyal Americans have been wrongfully flagged as terrorists, simply to ascertain an excuse to monitor their ordinary communications, political agenda’s, etc.
Again, I must have missed that article...
It will take years before those members of Congress that oppose the Bush Administration to be unflaged. Same with movie directors like Range, Michael Moore, etc....
Wonder how many secrets, treacherous and immoral information has been ascertained by the NSA and not terroristic. Certainly, the information is too valuable for it to be simply ignore and disregarded.
The question is what was initially promised to the Telco's for their treachery. Remember, it was a whistle blower that exposed the illegal acts to us and Congress.
Ah....might want to loosen that tinfoil hat just a tad. You do know if you put it on too tight it acts like a boost-antenna, right?
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|On this side of the line, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
On the other side of the line, everyone is presumed to be a suspect until proven otherwise.
And for your information a copper mixing bowl from France workss much better than foil...!
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|And for your information a copper mixing bowl from France works much better than foil...!
*laughs* Good to know...
Who says we can't disagree *and* have fun?
n this side of the line, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
On the other side of the line, everyone is presumed to be a suspect until proven otherwise.
Rhetoric. There are plenty of agencies out there "protecting our privacy". If the gov was wholeheartedly spying on non-suspected citizens, we'd know about it.
It's easy to claim it's happening when you can simply back up the complete lack of proof with a conspiracy theory. Try claiming something like that without using paranoia as a crutch sometime. :)
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|i agree that it's all in good fun, especially when the main article is mundane and not colorful, per se.
however, don't discount the rules i mentioned. the police use them, the military, etc.
case and point: the case for going to war with iraq. another is Valeri P., and there are more.
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|In the defense of the telcos, and I can't believe I am going to say this, the Bush admin did such a good job of fear mongering and scaring people about terrorism they probably felt they had no choice. Who knows what was said to them by the likes of Cheney and Gonzalez to get them to turn over the data.
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|Of course they had no choice. The whole Bush tactic comes down to this: Beware, the terrorists are coming. You must do everything we ask of you, otherwise you're supporting terrorism. If you're not with us, then you're with them (the terrorists).
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|I love it ... the America belief: "What happens in the US is our business only, what happens outside of the US is only our business too!".
Can we start tapping American phones? Oww, pretty please?
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|Dems loose again.. I love it..
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|Bush and the phone companies broke the law, and you would rather protect them than protect us from terrorists like Osama bin Laden.
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|@zridling: Pathetic noglobal nonsense you wrote there. You Left Wing supporters should learn what democracy means. And your precious Left Wing leaders like the Clinton one did nothing better than the Right Wing in this case, as usual.
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|Living in a free society means giving up all of your individual rights in the name of fear mongering and preventing terrorism? It is simple, under FISA law as existed they could monitor communications without a warrant, as long as they went to the court to get a warrant within something like 3 days.
Instead Bush wants carte blanche for them to monitor anyone, anywhere, any time with no accountability. The presidency is not a dictatorship, and there is a reason we have checks and balances. Our government was designed this way for a reason.
The best part about it is the constant leaks from the Bush administration about breaking up terrorist plots whenever it is politically necessary to leak the information. It makes me ill to hear Bush say leaks will not be tolerated when the White House has more leaks than a pasta strainer.
They basically destroyed SITE with the bin Laden tape. Yea, that was in the best interest of national security.
All in the name of stopping terrorists! And they compare apples to oranges when they talk about Clinton and terrorism. The WTC was bombed under Clinton and so were foreign targets. The WTC was bombed again under Bush but they try to discount the foreign targets. Lynn Cheney did this on the Daily Show last week.
You have to compare apples to apples here people, and both Clinton and Bush are about tied. The biggest difference is that terrorists only have to go to Iraq and set up road side bombs to harm American interests these days. They don't have to go to other countries abroad.
Don't even get me started about the nerve of our president to be warning Turkey about pre-emptively invading another country just because they use terorism within their borders. America invaded Iraq and they had nothing to do with 9/11. Last I heard a majority of the highjackers were from Saudi Arabia..but we didn't invade them did we?
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|Instead Bush wants carte blanche for them to monitor anyone, anywhere, any time with no accountability.
Last I checked, it was for domestic->foreign / foreign->domestic calls only, and only when when of the callers is suspected of being connected to a terrorist organization.
...or were you just hoping you could slide that by to help support your otherwise baseless argument?
The biggest difference is that terrorists only have to go to Iraq and set up road side bombs to harm American interests these days. They don't have to go to other countries abroad.
Funny you mention that. Our military is voluntary. They know what the possible outcomes of the jobs they do are. They are in Iraq fighting these guys so they *won't* attack American (or other) interests elsewhere.
Guess it's working pretty well.
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|Once any legislation like this goes through, the ACLU will be all over it and rightly so... The warrantless surveillance is unconstitutional, and there's NOTHING that is going to change that fact. It's right there in the Bill of Rights.
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|Since the introduction of the "patriot act" you have no rights. he will state national security and case closed more laws broken but no one gets punished but the american countrymen that will lose even more liberty!
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|"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl von Clausewitz
I love the patriot act. What better way to show your "patriotism" than to give up all your civil rights and liberties? It doesn't get any more patriotic than that!
Spy domestic, spy foreign, spy, spy, spy. All in the name of fighting terrorism. I love how so many American believe that Osama Bin Laden is the epitome of "terrorism" and he might attack again any day now. Therefore, you must allow your government to do everything in its power to protect you! Even if that means spying on you and stripping you of all your constitutional rights.
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|@cannonfodder: Still noglobal nonsense. The Patriot Act main goal was to ensure that terrorists didn't have any rights anymore, while during the Clinton era they were allowed to infiltrate the country pretty easy to set up 9/11.
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|@kashin: Still nonsense. Secret agencies and militaries can spy on the population since way before even the 1st world war.. so, go figure..
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