Please Pass Me My Tin Foil Hat
Glenn Greenwald has always had the best take on our Consitutional rights. Democrats who voted to grant immunity to telecoms who spied on us, thus giving a pass to the Bush administration as well, ought to be ashamed. It pains me that this includes Barack Obama. This Democratic-controlled Senate couln’t get passed the Dodd amendment which would have kept the FISA bill in tact but would have eliminated the immunity provision. They couldn’t even pass the Bingaman amendment, which would have at least have allowed the results of an audit of the telecommunication companies to be completed before granting them immunity.
Russ Feingold has it right:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=QDlYcn5HEs8]
Orrin Hatch believes that if you want to stand up for the Constitution, you’re akin to someone in a tin-foil hat.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=T77_aahei1U]
Here is the dishonor roll of Democrats who went along with the Bush administration, ignoring our fundamental rights:
Democrats voting in favor of final passage of the FISA bill: Bayh – Carper – Casey – Conrad – Feinstein – Innuoye – Kohl – Landrieu – Lincoln – McCaskill – Mukulski – Nelson (Neb.) – Nelson (Fla.) – Obama – Pryor – Rockefeller – Salazar – Webb – Whitehouse.
Shame on each of those above.
Oh No ! looks like obama is a rat in the house of the Raven? jesse jackson caper and now this.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Obama needs to be told that we don’t want any more Bush antics like this bill that strips the 4th Amendment!
July 10th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Alan, you didn’t let me make my point when I called. The Democratic Party put Roberts (2005) and Alito (January 2006) on the Court. Yes, they were the minority party BUT they had 42 who voted AGAINST Alito and they couldn’t get 41 to filibuster? They failed on that one, didn’t they?
Mr. Obama (see how polite I am when I am not trying to save YOU time on the radio?) changed his position on abortion recently by publicly stating that he would not include a woman’s mental health status in determining validity for a late-term abortion. THAT is a change from his earlier position that the woman’s health status — whether physical or mental — would be a valid factor in a late-term abortion. I’m surprised NARAL hasn’t called him out on this, but they are traitors to Hillary (whom I supported) and don’t have any credibility with me anymore, anyway.
Mr. Obama, in addition to the flip-flop above and his MAJOR FLIP-FLOP on OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, has turned me off in a third way: he supports faith-based initiatives with public money. I say if religious groups get taxpayers’ money, they need to start PAYING TAXES.
Three strikes, Alan, and you’re out!
I’m voting in November on local issues ONLY. I won’t be voting for Mr. Senator Barack Obama. I just unsubscribed to Mr. “Give ‘em Hell, Harry!” Reid’s newsletter, and I told him the same. He and Ms. Pelosi have run the Democratic Party into the ground.
Local issues only, Alan. This FISA flip-flop was the last straw. Especially grievous from an alleged constitutional scholar.
There, I’m done now. (Sorry to call us Democrats “Dems”, but I will be re-registering as an Independent soon, so perhaps I got a little cocky.)
July 10th, 2008 at 1:05 am
i refuse to blame the telecom companies for spying, IF they did so without knowing their actions were illegal. i’m so sick of hearing about this issue, because no one in the media is reporting on whether or not the companies knew.
if the government rolls into your corporate office and tells you that you HAVE to do something, then you’d damned well better do it. PERIOD. i WILL NOT fault these companies if that was the case.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:34 am
alan, i can’t believe that you’re expressing so much disdain for these companies. did they knowingly break the law?
July 10th, 2008 at 1:35 am
marie~ i remember your phone call. i was interested in what you had to say, and wish you’d gotten a little more time. thanks for posting it all in full here.
during the call you said that you “looked back at your notes”. do you keep a current events journal or something? i’ve thought about starting one.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Cheryl:
Yes, they knowingly BROKE THE LAW. One telecom company, Qwest, had their lawyers review the government’s program in February 2001 — way BEFORE 9/11 — and decided THEY WOULD NOT BREAK THE LAW.
These companies knew they were breaking the law. And they willingly broke the law. But, as Tricky Dick used to say, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
Now, the only question is, WHICH PRESIDENT told the telecoms it was OK to spy on Americans without a warrant? Was it Bush, or was it Cheney?
July 10th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Cheryl,
I copy and paste electronic newspaper articles of political and environmental significance and send them to myself through e-mail. That way they can’t get edited by mistake and also get dated automatically. I’ve kept this “record” of issues since around April 2003 when I got my laptop. I’m embarrassed to admit that these e-mails number in the thousands!
At heart I am concerned about the environment — that’s why I found a home in the Democratic Party for so long (since 1972). But no more.
There’s a bumper sticker that perfectly expresses my feelings for the past decade (starting around the time of Bill Clinton’s impeachment):
If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I don’t care about this, just don’t take my guns away from me or from little baby Jesus…
July 10th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Find someone who can claim that they were victimized by the telecoms and this case should move forward. The law won’t allow standing for national security reasons. The telecoms had their arms patriotically twisted and they complied with the President and his team who broke the Consitution. Go to the source. Use Rico if you must, but go to the source.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:58 am
if the government rolls into your corporate office and tells you that you HAVE to do something, then you’d damned well better do it. PERIOD.
Cheryl, with all due respect, what on earth are you talking about? You DO NOT have to do what the govt tells you if you feel they are asking you to do something illegal or something that violates your or someone elses civil rights. That’s why we have a Constitution and a fourth amendment. That is our contract between we the people and our govt. It doesn’t matter if you are a corporation or a private citizen. We do not live in a fascist society (not yet) or a monarchy. We have laws and we have rights. We have the right to individual privacy unless the govt has a warrant in which to seek further information or evidence. If the govt breaks that trust and violates your civil rights you have to stand up to them. That is why we have lawyers, judges and courts. We have a Supreme Court and we have the ACLU and other civil liberty lawyers to go to as well in which to protect these very precious rights.
Of course they knew they were breaking the law. These are multi-billion dollar companies with the best lawyers in the country. But they were told that they would not get in trouble, that special allowances would be made for these breaches. I had a bunch of stuff on the company Qwest, as Marie mentioned, but now I can’t find it. I do remember that Qwest said that they had been threatened by certain people from the govt, that if they didn’t cooperate, they would lose govt contracts. Qwest STOOD UP TO THEM. THEY REFUSED. They refused because this company had concluded that these requests for access to the phone records of millions and millions of their customers WITHOUT A WARRANT violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act. They did the right thing!
I have no problem if the govt wants to spy on someone or a group if they have evidence which makes it appropriate. BUT GET A WARRANT FIRST! All they had to do was go to the FISA court and get a warrant from one of the judges which is normally done withn 72 hours I think. Most requests for a warrant are given. In these cases no warrant was requested!
The govt should not have the right to spy on tens of millions of innocent Americans and use and coerce corporations that we entrust our privacy to in order to supercede the Constitution for any information that they feel like having without providing appropriate justification!
July 10th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Please read this:
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is one of the provisions included in the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and was designed as a response to the controversial writs of assistance (a type of general search warrant), which were a significant factor behind the American Revolution. Toward that end, the amendment specifies that judicially sanctioned search and arrest warrants must be supported by probable cause and be limited in scope according to specific information supplied by a person (usually a peace officer) who has sworn by it and is therefore accountable to the issuing court.
The actual text of the Fourth Amendment:
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.
(I’m sorry Cheryl, I didn’t mean to bombard you with all of this, I obviously think this is an extremely important issue)
July 10th, 2008 at 3:02 am
epiphany~ it’s okay, i don’t think that you’re bombarding me. i’ve had this discussion on LL before, and laid out my opinion in more detail.
basically, my argument is that if the govt rolls into the office and says that you have to do ’so and so’ because the patriot act or whatever says ’so and so’, then you have to do it. i’m looking for information on what the companies were told they had to do, and if their lawyers reviewed the orders, what they determined.
if they all knew that they were acting illegally, then i want them to pay for their actions as much as you do. i just haven’t seen that proven. my experience with the government is that when they say i have to roll over and take it up the arse, i have no other choice but to do so.
marie~ thanks for the info. that’s actually a really good idea. i use gmail, so it would be easy to search for the exact article i was looking for.
July 10th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Calm down and learn how to spell “AMENDMENT” Alan. You misspelled it 2x in your post (and I only read the 1st portion…)
As for disappointment in Obama, well SHAME ON YOU for not having the brains to see what a phony, unqualified, Wall Street bought and paid for, egotistical, arrogant, black power hungry, empty suit, dangerous creature he is to this nation. SHAME ON YOU ALAN.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:52 am
If the govt wants to listen to a phone call because they think it might be related to terrorists overseas. by all means listen in.
No one has the right to conspire with overseas enemies. No one.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:45 am
“Black power hungry”?
July 10th, 2008 at 7:21 am
For disappointed Obama supporters,you can register your protests on; my.barackobama.com.
I sent MY senator a photocopy of a check a sent to Russ Feingold, explaining that even though I can not vote for him, my support will go to those are the right side of American values.
Remember:
“The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.”
~Charles-Louis De Secondat
About the quote: From “The Spirit of Laws,” 1748
July 10th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Cheryl, it doesn’t matter what the telecoms did.
Liberal view, summarized:
BIG COMPANY = MONEY = EVIL = MUST DIE
But you made a good point…the government says to these companies, “do this” and they do it. The government is more to blame IF they violated the law.
As to wiretapping: what if there is a terrorist “on the move” and there is no time to get a warrant? NYC ends up getting nuked because a warrant cannot be gotten? “Oh, that’ll never happen.” Did anyone think the Twin Towers would ever come down? You’ve got to remember, this is for tapping people outside of the country.
Yes, if you’re talking to your friend in Baghdad and he has terrorist ties then you might be tapped. That’s too bad, I’m sorry. You libs do realize that the next terrorist act will be again targeting a big city where there is a large quantity of libs around? I as a conservative in a small town have nothing to worry about. That’s reality.
All I believe in is the 2nd amendment, Epiphany. YEEHAW! What’s this 4th amendment stuff? There’s more than 2 amendments?
The ACLU tried to get a GIRL in the Boy Scouts. Still annoys me.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:04 am
flap said,
“As to wiretapping: what if there is a terrorist “on the move” and there is no time to get a warrant? NYC ends up getting nuked because a warrant cannot be gotten? “Oh, that’ll never happen.” Did anyone think the Twin Towers would ever come down? You’ve got to remember, this is for tapping people outside of the country.
Yes, if you’re talking to your friend in Baghdad and he has terrorist ties then you might be tapped. That’s too bad, I’m sorry. You libs do realize that the next terrorist act will be again targeting a big city where there is a large quantity of libs around? I as a conservative in a small town have nothing to worry about. That’s reality.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
flap,
You assume they are only spying on bad guys.
I am much more cynical of this crowd.
Under FISA, they have 72 hours to obtain a warrant AFTER they start wiretapping.
To me, that’s plenty of time to get the warrent.
My concern is: what if they are wiretapping their political opposition?
Or those donate to the ‘wrong’ party?
What if you get put on a no fly list because you read the ‘wrong’ websites?
How will you even know, and how will you get the list?
I fear that the reason they want they immunity,for the telecoms is so that no one CAN sue, and have it come out in discovery just WHO they have spied upon.
Someone,(I don’t know who said),
“If government has nothing to hide, it should have nothing to fear from surveillance from the citizen.”!
July 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am
“As to wiretapping: what if there is a terrorist “on the move” and there is no time to get a warrant? NYC ends up getting nuked because a warrant cannot be gotten?”
Yeah we see how well that worked in preventing 9/11, considering this administration has been wiretapping since February 2001.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
The bill just passed by that yellow bellied Senate prevents getting at the full truth of the illegal Bush wiretaps as now no discovery will occur. This is likely because key Democratic leaders were in on what was happening and don’t want that outed at fund raising time. The telecoms, like any of us, knew or should have known, that the requests were illegal (no one denies they were illegal). Nuremburg trials made it clear that “orders” were no excuse for violating the law. We can be perfectly safe with FISA current policy which gives the right to immediate wiretapping and a later warrant application in the emergency context mentioned here. But the scenerio of looking at pooled communications for key words or associations without warrant will go on. My wanting GW Bush IN JAIL for violating his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and then using state secrets acts to hide his misdeeds will likely get me on “the list”. So be it! Watch out you complacent citizens…you may awake to find yourself in the gulog!
July 10th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
By the way…every Democrat yellow belly ought to hear from his/her constituency and be voted out of office STAT. The Pelosi/Reid leadership of the “majority” party is non existant. That doesn’t mean I desire more of the current republicans, rather, some dems who will step up to their oath and preserve and defend the constitution both is the Presidency and the Congress. Obama…you just plain blew it! You are no better than the worse of them thanks to your turncoat advisors (or were you really just fooling us when you were opposed?)
July 10th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
If the police or the feds think there’s an imminent threat they’re not going to wait on a warrant, whether it’s tapping your phone or busting down your door. They have a duty under the law to protect life and property, and there isn’t a prosecutor in the country who’d raise an eyebrow if a few trampled inalienable rights circumvent a mass casualty attack.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Looks to me like Bush’s scare tactic worked like a charm on RC. He’s willing to give up his rights because of a boogeyman. Here is how concerned your commander in chief is about finding his boogyman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o
July 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
OldLefty,
You said: “I fear that the reason they want they immunity,for the telecoms is so that no one CAN sue, and have it come out in discovery just WHO they have spied upon.”
What I believe they are trying desperately to hide is THE DATE they first started this spying program. The CEO of Qwest said his company was approached in February 2001. If the public hears this in the corporate media, it would open the door to questions like: Well, if this program was so necessary to national security, then how/why did 9/11 happen?
Another avenue of inquiry that I have is the mysterious unsolved anthrax letters mailed to Sen. Patrick Leahy (then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee) and Sen. Tom Daschle, then the Senate majority leader, both Democrats. NO REPUBLICAN RECEIVED ANY ANTHRAX.
I’ve never seen anyone explore this unsolved act of terrorism by asking whether that was the work of Cheney.
I’m sorry, but he strikes me as the most dishonest, vile human being we’ve ever had at the top of our government. It’s obvious to me that he was planning the invasion of Iraq during his secret “energy” meetings in March 2001 with the heads of the oil and gas companies. And then he had his criminal buddy Scalia (who should have recused himself from participating in the SC ruling) help him to forever cover up the records of those meetings.
I’m not necessarily a conspiracy theorist. But just what was the point of the anthrax attacks? Were they intended to scare our lawmakers into future compliance with all these unconstitutional programs and law changes, beginning with the Patriot Act, moving to Gitmo, torture, the Military Commissions Act, and the gutting of FISA and our 4th amendment? With the ultimate goal of supreme executive power over Congress and the Justice Dept?
Voila! The perfect environment for chaos and war profiteering.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Marie of Wilton Manors,
I agree.
I fear that there are SO many crimes committed by this rouge administration that no one can focus on all of them.
Between the lying and the spying and the stealing and putting the wolves in charge of the henhouses, who can keep up?
Is it any wonder that most people are more worried about Brittany?
July 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am
The Democrats most vexxing irritant is that Bush’s adminstration was a billion times more honest and non-corrupt than Clinton’s.
So non-corrupt that they have to talk themselves into beliveing crimes have been committed. Self-delusion before our eyes.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:10 am
“The Democrats most vexxing irritant is that Bush’s adminstration was a billion times more honest and non-corrupt than Clinton’s.”
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WOW!
Please spare us the irrational spinning with hurricane season so close!
I could not put it better than long time , bona fide conservative, Kevin Phillips writing about the Bush family in ‘American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush’
He said:
“Now what I get a sense of from all of this …is that this is not a family that has a particularly strong commitment to American democracy. Its sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.”
July 11th, 2008 at 9:45 am
“Looks to me like Bush’s scare tactic worked like a charm on RC…”
No, actually I’ve been emailing my senators regularly to demand that they stop the Bush regime from turning the US into a police state, and both my senators voted “nay” on FISA, so that’s some consolation.
But the reality is that if law enforcement learns of an “imminent threat”, such as a bomb about to be detonated, they’re going to do what they have to do to stop it, regardless of the law or the constitution.
I’m no lawyer, but it may be called the doctrine of “exigent circumstances.”
See: http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e063.htm
July 11th, 2008 at 11:32 am
RC:
I understand what you’re saying. If it were some other president with common sense, your statement may apply.
Unfortunately, we are currently saddled with Bush & Company who are compulsive liars and will say anything to get us into another war.
That said, I am skeptical of anybody claiming “imminent threat” in order to take away my civil liberties.
July 11th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Here’s the result of what you assholes are demanding. How many of our own people have to die for your fucking irrationality? I found this from last fall.:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10152007/news/nationalnews/wire_law_failed__lost_gi.htm
‘WIRE’ LAW FAILED LOST GI
10-HOUR DELAY AS FEDS SOUGHT TAP TO TRACK JIMENEZ CAPTORS IN IRAQ
October 15, 2007
WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence officials got mired for nearly 10 hours seeking approval to use wiretaps against al Qaeda terrorists suspected of kidnapping Queens soldier Alex Jimenez in Iraq earlier this year, The Post has learned.
This week, Congress plans to vote on a bill that leaves in place the legal hurdles in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – problems that were highlighted during the May search for a group of kidnapped U.S. soldiers.
In the early hours of May 12, seven U.S. soldiers – including Spc. Jimenez – were on lookout near a patrol base in the al Qaeda-controlled area of Iraq called the “Triangle of Death.”
Sometime before dawn, heavily armed al Qaeda gunmen quietly cut through the tangles of concertina wire surrounding the outpost of two Humvees and made a massive and coordinated surprise attack.
Four of the soldiers were killed on the spot and three others were taken hostage.
A search to rescue the men was quickly launched. But it soon ground to a halt as lawyers – obeying strict U.S. laws about surveillance – cobbled together the legal grounds for wiretapping the suspected kidnappers.
Starting at 10 a.m. on May 15, according to a timeline provided to Congress by the director of national intelligence, lawyers for the National Security Agency met and determined that special approval from the attorney general would be required first.
For an excruciating nine hours and 38 minutes, searchers in Iraq waited as U.S. lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the “probable cause” necessary for the attorney general to grant such “emergency” permission.
Finally, approval was granted and, at 7:38 that night, surveillance began.
“The intelligence community was forced to abandon our soldiers because of the law,” a senior congressional staffer with access to the classified case told The Post.
“How many lawyers does it take to rescue our soldiers?” he asked. “It should be zero.”
The FISA law applies even to a cellphone conversation between two people in Iraq, because those communications zip along wires through U.S. hubs, which is where the taps are typically applied.
U.S. officials had no way of knowing if Jimenez and his fellow soldiers were still alive during the nearly 10-hour delay.
The body of one was found a few weeks later in the Euphrates River and the terror group Islamic State of Iraq – an al Qaeda offshoot – later claimed in a video that Jimenez and the third soldier had been executed and buried.
“This is terrible. If they would have acted sooner, maybe they would have found something out and been able to find my son,” said Jimenez’s mother, Maria Duran. “Oh my God. I just keep asking myself, where is my son? What could have happened to him?”
Duran said she was especially frustrated, “because I thought they were doing everything possible to find him.”
“You know that this is how this country is – everything is by the law. They just did not want to break the law, and I understand that. They should change the law, because God only knows what type of information they could have found during that time period.”
July 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
And once again the NY Post is revealed for the laughable checkout-counter tabloid it is:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-10-23/news/post-haste/
July 11th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
RC, a big thanks for the V.V. link.
The NY Post has been seriously damaged under Murdoch, but the odd thing is VV was once owned by him (from 1977-1985). Good to see that today’s Voice doesn’t fail to expose the lazy, devious reporting of the Post, because readers everywhere online win.
I do hope Maria Duran was directly informed somehow by the Voice about the six-and-a-half hour bungling of the Bushie lawyers (who likely were googling the Internets, trying to find the text for FISA law. But first they spent four hours verifying that a search engine wasn’t a locomotive…)
But seriously, wasn’t FISA intended to allow for wiretapping of suspicious calls in and out of the U.S. only? How could it allow for wiretapping of foreign-to-foreign communications — wouldn’t that violate laws of sovereign governments?
That most of the delay was the administration’s fault only further proves their incompetence. Surely after four years in theater they would be operating under some kind of surveillance framework worked out with Maliki’s government — and how could it logically be FISA?
SUMMARY: More stenography from inept media; more deceit from “unnamed” senior intelligence officials and political spin from “anonymous” staffers. And another example of the Bush-Cheney NON-PLAN for post-invasion. Everything for the past five years in Iraq has been done on the fly.
Please, no more flying monkey men in the White House. Please.
July 12th, 2008 at 6:40 am
“How could it allow for wiretapping of foreign-to-foreign communications…”
I’ve seen it written in several places that foreign-to-foreign phone calls do sometimes pass through US telecom equipment. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing satellites. There’s also some program (forget the name) in which several countries (ie: UK, Canada, Australia, maybe New Zealand) cooperate with the US in catching phone calls flying around on microwaves.
It’s all open source so you should be able to look it up, if so inclined.
We probably have secret listening posts, too, in countries willing to “look the other way.” And then there’s submarines, and things they do, which I presume is not open source.
July 12th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
RC, thanks for the info.
What bothers me about this FISA issue is that only 30 of the 100 senators who voted on this final revision bill have any clue what the FISA program is doing or what the illegal NSA program did.
Although it’s probably classified as to who are in the 30-group, I would bet that most of the Democrats who voted against this thing ARE members of the 30-group (Feingold and Leahy, for instance).
If what you say is true about the “open source” approach, then it appears even more to me that FISA was/is strictly intended to be a domestic (i.e. constitutional) program, which means IT CAN’T BE APPLICABLE in Iraq, Afganistan, etc. So when the Main Monkey Man says we are all safer now because this new, improved FISA bill has passed, and in the next breath says this legislation better helps us find those pesky Al Qaeda terrorists, I have to laugh.
It’s all monkey-man spin again. And the sad thing is our pink-tutued Congress either believes it or pretends to (and which is worse)?
July 13th, 2008 at 4:14 pm