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Senate Passes Telecom Immunity Bill
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jul 09, 2008 03:30 PM
from the always-been-at-war-with-oceania dept.
from the always-been-at-war-with-oceania dept.
zehnra writes "The U.S. Senate this afternoon passed the FISA Amendments Act, broadly expanding the president's warrantless surveillance authority and unconstitutionally granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president's illegal domestic wiretapping program. The House of Representatives passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law shortly." The New York Times has a story, as does the Associated Press (carried here by Yahoo!). Reader Guppy points out the roll call for the vote.
Related Stories
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FISA Bill Vote Today, With Telco Immunity 465 comments
Bimo_Dude writes "Today (June 20), Steny Hoyer is bringing to the House floor the latest FISA bill (PDF), which includes retroactive immunity for the telcos. The bill also is very weak on judicial review, allowing the telcos to use a letter from the president as a 'get out of liability free' card. Here are comments from the EFF. Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, describes the effect of the immunity clause this way: 'So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words — the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists — and the minute he utters those words, the courts are required to dismiss the lawsuits against the telecoms, no matter how illegal their behavior was.'"
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Senate Delays Telecom Immunity Vote Until After July Recess 148 comments
ivantheshifty writes with news of a delayed vote (failed filibuster attempt aside) on the updated FISA bill which has been discussed here recently, in particular because it would grant telecom companies immunity (under certain conditions) from suits for wiretapping conducted at government request. According to the Associated Press story carried by the Washington Post, "Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and more than a dozen other senators who oppose telecom immunity threw up procedural delays that threatened to force the Senate into a midnight or weekend session. The prospect of further delays was enough to cause Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to postpone the vote until after the weeklong July 4 vacation."
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News: Telecom Immunity Flip-Floppers Got More Telecom Money 277 comments
ya really notes a nice analysis by Maplight.org indicating that those Democratic representatives who changed their vote on telecom immunity between March and June received on average 40% more in contributions from telecom interests than those Democrats who held firm. Maplight asks, "Why did these ninety-four House members have a change of heart? Their constituents deserve answers." Across both parties, representatives who voted for immunity in June had received almost twice as much telecom money as those who voted against. Wired's coverage includes a quote from Larry Lessig, who is on the Maplight board: "Money corrupts the process of reasoning. [Lawmakers] get a sixth sense of how what they do might affect how they raise money."
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ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging FISA 542 comments
Wired's Threat Level blog reports that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Recently passed by both the House and Senate, FISA was signed into law on Thursday by President Bush. The ACLU has fought aspects of FISA in the past. The new complaint (PDF) alleges the following:
"The law challenged here supplies none of the safeguards that the Constitution demands. It permits the government to monitor the communications of U.S. Citizens and residents without identifying the people to be surveilled; without specifying the facilities, places, premises, or property to be monitored; without observing meaningful limitations on the retention, analysis, and dissemination of acquired information; without obtaining individualized warrants based on criminal or foreign intelligence probable cause; and, indeed, without even making prior administrative determinations that the targets of surveillance are foreign agents or connected in any way, however tenuously, to terrorism."
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Whew, your telcos are safe. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure you're all feeling a little bit better now right ?
Um, right ?
Re:Whew, your telcos are safe. (Score:5, Funny)
Sure glad i'm european
Yes, because regimes that violate civil liberties have never come to power in Europe.....
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Remember in November. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Insightful)
For a while I thought Obama may have been worth voting for, but now its clear that he is just a Pol and not enough better than McCain to be worth voting for. I'm going to be limiting my choice to the Libertarian or Green candidates for President this fall.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's axiomatic that any person who does what is necessary to become a viable Presidential candidate will not be worth voting for.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like its time to form a new political party.
Guess I'll start my campaigning this year; as its going to take more than 8 years for this stuff to start to fix itself up.
Republicans, democrats, both are horrible and pitiful excuses for the most part as politicians. Both have sold out.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt it has much to do with Islam, aside from Muslims also knowing this very obvious fact. Anyone who wants power shouldn't have it, as should be clear to anyone who understands how these things work. I'm sure that the idea predates Islam, and Christianity for that matter.
The trouble is that this sentiment doesn't point to a solution. Just how do you choose a good leader without having a huge bias toward those people who want the position? I personally have no idea.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only a two-party system because so few vote for other parties. Let him vote for whoever he actually wants to be president. If everyone did that we might no longer have a two-party system.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Funny)
If everyone did that, we'd probably elect Oprah.
Which, all things considered, I'm sure would be a big improvement.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's a two-party system because of winner-takes-all state counting and the electoral college system. In such a system, any third party takes votes away from whichever of the primary parties most closely matches their goals. Thus, any libertarian or green party candidate running for President is only hurting their cause by making it less likely the representative that best supports their view wins. And since the only way to change it is in Congress and not the Executive branch, and they know this, you know they're doing it intentionally for publicity.
So sure, fall for the publicity stunts if you want, but don't think they have your interests at heart.
The way it's SUPPOSED to work is that the candidates are supposed to campaign hard, build supporters, negotiate concessions from the primary parties, then pledge their supporters to the candidate that agrees to support their interests. Thus even minorities are represented and the will of the people isn't subverted by a split vote.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Interesting)
If everyone did that we might no longer have a two-party system.
Even if this is true, I'm not convinced what we'd have is better though. We really need to fix the one-person-one-vote thing to have viable third parties.
There's an interesting bit of economic theory which I think I remember from my game theory class. Imagine you have a beach, represented simply by a stretch of land. (i.e. it doesn't go all the way around a lake or something like that.) There are two competing snack stands that stake out the beach. Suppose they start 25% and 75% of the way across the beach, respectively. Assume a uniform (or at least symmetric about the midpoint) distribution of visitors on the beach, and that everyone goes to the nearest snack stand for food.
What will happen is that each snack stand owner will keep nudging closer to the center of the beach in an effort to get more of the visitors. Eventually they will reach a stable position with both in the exact center.
What's interesting about this is that if a third snack stand enters the picture, there is no stable solution. It will always be in someone's best interest to move.
The parallels to elections I think is pretty clear, even if the model is extremely simple even for the beach world, let alone an election where you have rich political views that don't just fall on a single axis. (Even the thing you'll see with some online tests that rate you on, say, economic and social axes are really simple.)
But I really think that if magically we were to arrive at the situation where there were three parties and a third of the country identified with each, after a few election cycles we'd be back where we are, at least for presidental and probably Senate elections. You need something more, like proportional representation (which doesn't work for the president and not really for the Senate) or a different vote counting system.
It's possible that I'm wrong of course.
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Re:Remember in November. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to be limiting my choice to the Libertarian or Green candidates for President this fall.
And that won't do a bit of good in a two-party system, unfortunately, and in fact it may just get McCain elected. I don't like the way it is, but it is what it is.
Perhaps its time to change 'the way it is'. We did it once before.
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Some days... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm thinking its time we start looking at the French Revolution for advice.
Re:Some days... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm thinking its time we start looking at the French Revolution for advice.
Just remember, it ended with a Napoleon that was every bit as authoritarian as the old kings.
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Re:Some days... (Score:5, Interesting)
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Every day I wish more that this is going to be during my lifetime.
Sadly I don't see such a revolution happening again. In the past you got a quite a few guys with weapons and you were about equal. I look around at non violent drug offenders being locked up. Abuse of power by all 3 branches. A minority of public that actually knows what is going on and a majority that wants to know when the next American Idol starts.
If I were to get a few hundred people together and try to split off I'm sure the Police, National Guard, US Army would have something to say. I'd be locked away for life for "Terrorism". If I blew up a few buildings (killing no one), I'd be a terrorist. If I organized a protest I'd be locked in the corner and labeled a nut.
There have been revolutions against insurmountable odds, but I don't think there has been any army in history that is as one sided as what the US currently has.
Just a minute, someone's knocking at the door...
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Re:Some days... (Score:5, Insightful)
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MOTHER FUCKING TRAITORS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MOTHER FUCKING TRAITORS (Score:5, Informative)
I was somewhat surprised to see my normally idiotic senators vote the correct way for once.
However, I'm disappointed that Obama voted yes. He'll be getting some angry email from me.
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Re:MOTHER FUCKING TRAITORS (Score:5, Funny)
I wrote my senators. Fat lot of good that shit does.
You probably forgot to put a few $100 bills in the envelopes.
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We had one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you remember 2006? When the largest upheaval in Congressional history happened, giving a clear mandate to our lawmakers to end the war? Somehow that didn't happen. Somehow the legislative groundwork got laid for another war in the meantime.
My congresscritters happened to be on the right side of this. If yours were not, I strongly suggest calling their offices and informing them that (if they're Democrats) your donations next election cycle will be going to their challenger in the primary. And then, of course, following through on that.
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Re:We had one. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, 1994 was the biggest upheaval in Congress. The Democrats held majority power for 30+ years to that point, and looked to continue that hold... then suddenly this guy named Gingrich and a whole horde of opposition party candidates won a cascade of elections, blasting out a huge majority for themselves. The Senate fell to GOP rule just as quickly as the House did.
2006 really was no upheaval because the GOP majority in Congress had slowly begun to wane ever since 1998 or so... it was a slow shift if nothing else.
Incidentally, Barack Obama voted "Yea" on this bill. Not "Present", not "Npot voting", not "No"... he voted for it.
I wonder what the DNC and its fan base is going to do when they find out en masse? I wonder how they'll spin it if McCain's campaign ever gets its head out of its collective ass and spreads word about it?
Interesting, to say the least...
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Re:So anyone who disagrees with you is a traitor? (Score:5, Interesting)
Good faith?
Companies capitulated in the face of jingoist rhetoric and executive branch shenanigans, essentially offering up constitutional protections with barely a peep.
Whether they "thought they were doing the right thing" or not isn't the point... THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO DO IT. It's illegal, it's a violation of the constitution, and they're lawyers KNEW THIS.
Undoubtedly the Bush administration promised to cover their ass, and that's exactly what they've done.
People scream about how unfair and overused civil suits are, but the truth is that in a capitalist society civil suits and monetary settlements are how you keep irresponsible corporations honest. Companies DO NOT CARE about you in any way shape or form, but they care about money, and the prospect of loosing large amounts of it can help to keep them honest.
I can't believe Obama was stupid enough to vote for this tripe. At least McCain had the brains to avoid voting entirely. I favored Obama if only on the tax issue, but this has immediately made me question that decision.
Lieberman I always knew you were a weasly little maggot coward, climb back into GWB's pants.
Nice to see NY's senators did the right thing. Schumer and HC, I tip my cap to the correct call... you may have voted for your own reasons, but you voted right.
Goddamn I hate my government. This and the Patriot Act... it might as well be 1938.
-rt
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Re:So anyone who disagrees with you is a traitor? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree, though I see the point you're getting at. Rule of law must be preserved in all instances, it's much too fine a line to walk and at that time this was rule of law. Retroactive immunity should not be tolerated, and it sends a message that corporations should not blindly bend to the will of our government, as no one should.
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Re:So anyone who disagrees with you is a traitor? (Score:5, Informative)
That, and Quest didn't do it because they had competent lawyers who told them it was obviously illegal. AT&T and Verizon must have a decent legal department too, they just chose not to listen.
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Just Following Orders (Score:5, Insightful)
"Just Following Orders" is not an excuse to break the law.
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Re:So anyone who disagrees with you is a traitor? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more concerned with the illegal, warrantless wiretapping they were asked to do (and complied with) BEFORE 9/11. Without immunity, most of these companies could be compelled to testify at hearings designed to bring to light what DID happen, and WHO was wiretapped, and be granted immunity when they were cooperative.
Now, there's no reason for them to comply with anything. Bush wins again.
The thing is, if they did nothing wrong, what have they got to hide? Right? Isn't that what they always tell us about the wiretapping? We don't even KNOW what they did that we are granting them immunity of -- but wow, are they spending billions to "convince" our legislators that there's "Nothing to see here, move along..."
They seem pretty desperate to make sure that nothing they did will even come to light.
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Re:So anyone who disagrees with you is a traitor? (Score:5, Informative)
I happen to believe that companies acting in good faith
You happen to believe wrong. The companies involved acted for money, nothing more. See also: Qwest's refusal to go along and the contracts that were pulled due to that choice. Or if you don't buy that, see also the story that got linked here about how the telcos have no qualms turning off the taps when the government doesn't pay [slashdot.org].
Furthermore, as another user pointed out, this began before 9/11.
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Damnit (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Funny)
McCain abstained, which I guess makes him a "moderate" on the issue of screwing us over at every opportunity.
Tired of choosing the lesser of two evils? Vote Cthulhu in '08! No more years!
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Re:I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Informative)
And here's Greenwald's trashing [blogspot.com] of that explanation.
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Re:I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire system has gotten completely out of hand. We need to change it so that there is no way for a company to financially reward a politician for listening to them. We also need to make it so that companies aren't even allowed to lobby politicians in the first place.
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Re:I didn't know Obama was supporting this (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading Obama's explanation it looks like he wants to show he can compromise with the rightwing, and probably appear more moderate to the on-the-fence voters.
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Re:Living under a rock? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I doubt you (though I don't believe you, either), but the least you could do is provide citations. An admonishment to "wake up!" isn't terribly compelling if you don't provide proof that people are deluded in the first place.
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Clinton D-NY YEA (to the Induce act) (Score:5, Informative)
She cosigned the induce act, remember that lovely piece of legislation? The one that would have made the general purpose pc, the smart phone, the blackberry, and the ipod illegal?
yeah, she's such a great, "stand-up for the little guy" kind of politican.
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More On Immunity (Score:5, Insightful)
From CNN [cnn.com]
In short: They aren't outright granted immunity, but instead a hearing will be held where they will undoubtedly be granted immunity. Bloody Democrats, they never have a spine when they need one.
PS: Hello to whatever TLA is currently monitoring this
Bloody Democrats? (Score:5, Informative)
Of the 49 Democrats in the Senate, the vote was 20-27-1 for FISA -- the Dems as a group voted against the bill, with Kennedy not present.
Of the 2 Independents in the Senate, the vote was 1-1-0 for FISA -- Sanders voted against, Lieberman for.
Of the 49 Republicans in the Senate, the vote was 47-0-2 for FISA -- the Republicans as a group voted unanimously for the bill, with McCain and Sessions not present.
So it seems to me the beef ought not to be with the "Bloody Democrats" -- but rather with 100% of the Republican Senators, 50% of the Independent Senators, and roughly 40% of the Democratic Senators.
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"Obama (D-IL), Yea" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Obama (D-IL), Yea" (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, "Change, for the worse"
That is still change.
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Deplorable (Score:5, Interesting)
Deplorable
Why didn't Obama try to stop this? He could have spoken out and got the rest of the dems behind him. Instead he voted in favor of it. This is what his campaign said in October:
"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."
And on Dec 17:
Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same.
Oh sure, he voted for the amendments which attempted to remove or limit the immunity, but everyone already knew those would fail.
This is from his most recent statement last week:
The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I'm persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe -- particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise.
Another nail in the coffin for our constitution. This is a sad day. And to think that most of the senate voted on this WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING WHAT THEY WERE GIVING THE TELCOMS IMMUNITY FOR!!!.
This stinks of a grand-scale coverup. There is still the possibility of suing the government, and perhaps striking this bill as unconsitutional. Let's hope we get to the bottom of this and put some people in jail.
Time for the Supreme Court to step in (Score:5, Insightful)
The Supreme Court needs to step in and strike this down. Someone needs to bring a lawsuit and get it sent up to the Supreme Court.
When FISA courts can grant RETROACTIVE warrants, why does the Bush administration insist on not getting a warrant?
Because they were doing far more than just looking for terrorists.
A true sad day in the US.
Glad I voted for Ron Paul. I'll be using him as a write in come November.
Re:Time for the Supreme Court to step in (Score:5, Informative)
A true sad day in the US.
Glad I voted for Ron Paul. I'll be using him as a write in come November.
May I humbly suggest voting for a third party, any third party, with which your protest vote will count?
Ron Paul has said not to write in his name. He isn't even registered as a write-in candidate.
So while it's quite romantic to write in his name, it might be a little more effective to demonstrate our discontent with third party votes which will actually show up on official tallies. I'd recommend Libertarian or Green.
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Ex Post Facto (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't this fly in the face of article 1 section 9 [wikipedia.org] of the constitution? In paragraph 3 is states, "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." That seems rather straightforward to me and since this decriminalizes something after the fact it sounds like an Ex Post Facto law to me.
The actual impact (Score:5, Interesting)
In between reading the legislation (which none of you will do) and reading only the summary, you might consider reading some analysis of this by someone who Is A Lawyer:
Article here: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20080702.html [findlaw.com]
Donations from Obama to ACLU (Score:5, Insightful)
I was donating fairly regularly to Mr. Obama for his quest for Presidency. I urge those that were doing the same to move their future donations from Mr. Obama and the DNC to the ACLU, which is vowing to fight FISA and the immunity in court [rawstory.com].
Get Angry (Score:5, Insightful)
The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I'm persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe -- particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. -- Obama
Hang on - typo in there...
Given the choice between sacrificing the 4th amendment and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. -- Obama
There, fixed that for ya.
Thanks for the run Obama, it was nice to have six months to believe there could be a principled President.
Now, let's all drop the depression, disappointment, and bargaining. And for damned sure let's not slip into acceptance. Let's focus on the right phase of grief for this ongoing usurpation of our nation; anger.
Re:habeas corpus (Score:5, Funny)
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