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Senator Slaps Down FISA Telecom Immunity
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Oct 18, 2007 08:28 PM
from the not-so-fast dept.
from the not-so-fast dept.
cleetus writes "Today Senator Chris Dodd decided to put a hold on the FISA bill, one of the provisions of which would have granted immunity to any telecom which, if found to have acted in good faith, violated U.S. laws in turning over customer data to the government. According to TPM Election Central, "By doing this, Dodd can effectively hold up the telecom immunity bill, because bills are supposed to have unanimous consent in the Senate before going forward. One Senator can make it very difficult to bring a bill to the floor by objecting to allowing it to go to a vote." This throws a fairly big roadblock in front of this bill, covered by Slashdot earlier today."
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[+]
Politics: White House Wins On Spying, Telecom Immunity 658 comments
EllisDees sends in a Washington Post report that Senate Republicans have outmaneuvered Democrats, who withdrew a more stringent version of legislation to control the government's domestic surveillance program. The legislation that will go forward includes a grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program.
[+]
Telecom Immunity -- We're Down to the Wire(tap) 219 comments
The law says telecom providers can't wiretap your phone calls or net traffic, but as long as their taps are legal or they acted in good faith they're already immune from prosecution and lawsuits. That said, your telecom providers are still trying to get Congress to immunize them for cooperating with NSA wiretaps (presumably because the taps were both illegal and done in bad faith). Retroactive immunity wouldn't just mean they get away with it, it would crush our ability as citizens to find out what happened using the power of the courts.
Last month,
Sen. Chris Dodd temporarily stopped the bill, but within days -- probably on Monday -- it's going to be reintroduced, and it's not at all clear it will be stopped again. He'll need strong allies, because he's fighting not just the Bush administration and GOP Senators, but his own party's Sen. Harry Reid and
"AT&T's personal Senator" Jay Rockefeller. So Dodd needs more Senators backing him up, preferably joining a full-blown filibuster on the Senate floor. If you ever want accountability for whatever companies illegally forwarded your data to the NSA, you basically have today and tomorrow to
say
something.
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Nice to know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice to know... (Score:5, Funny)
Note to republicans: Dont get a boner over this comment, your band of idiots suck too.
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Re:Nice to know... (Score:5, Informative)
I'll bet if Rush were caught molesting a 3 year-old his defense would be it was taken out of context.
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Re:Nice to know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Link [salon.com]
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Re:Nice to know... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Nice to know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'd really rather you hadn't given them my receipt, if I was among the customers. Just because you meant well doesn't mean you did the right thing. (On the flip side, our legal system is rather screwed up, and it seems entirely possible you'll get hit with far more than you deserve. Well intentioned minor problems should get minor punishments, and you certainly don't deserve to face the potential for complete financial ruin that any lawsuit carries these days.)
You've got multiple different trusts t
Re:Nice to know... (Score:4, Insightful)
All kinds of people do dangerous things because they don't know any better. That doesn't make what they did any less dangerous. This attitude of giving the government anything it asks for because of it's own self-justifiying fear-mongering is probably the most dangerous thing to happen in the US since 9/11.
How many fertilizer bombings of any significance has there been in this country? What, two over the last 20 years?
Do you really think that such a small number of actual cases deserves the massive level of invasion of privacy that has been committed since then? Aren't there better things to be spending our resources on than undermining the founding principles of our country to try to stop such rare events? 40,000 people die each year in car accidents. Averaged out over the last two decades, less than 10 people have died per year because of fertilizer bombings.
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Re:Nice to know... (Score:4, Informative)
First, there are laws about fertilizer that went into place before the Oklahoma city bombing that tracks who bought what and how much over a certain amount. You have to have a name and address for orders not much larger then what would be needed for a big yard in one purchase. and if you buy in certain quantities, certain things require a chemical license which a copy must be left on file at the place of purchase with a record of the purchase. This is for environmental reasons/ they want to know who is polluting the waterways.
Second, after the OK city bombing, they started requiring IDs for certain fertilizers. The miracle grow stuff you get won't make a good bomb. Depending on what these guys were supposedly doing to attract the attention of the FBI who wanted to know about fertilizer purchases, I'm going to guess that they needed either a chemical license or an EPA reporting certificate which means he would have had a copy of the name, what was sold and how much was sold.
Third, I find it ironic that he is being sued by the 15 or so other customers who the FBI checked out. Well, The FBI won't look at stuff not related to the case just to be looking at it. I know everyone is worried about big government and all, but we are talking about a specific branch that has to justify it's time in order to gain funding. And to be more specific, we are talking about specific agents who are on an assignment and apparently looking into something dangerous. In order to check everyone out, something would have to be wrong like non of the credit cards matched the names of the suspects or immediate members of their circle. Next, they wouldn't notify anyone that they were looking into them because of it. In other words, how would those people know. The FBI isn't going to go up to them and say did you purchase X at Y's store and then tell them they are asking because the owner just gave them the receipts. They would likely only mess with them if the cards used didn't match the people they are investigating, and then they will saying something to the effect of investigating credit card fraud or something and they was wondering if they purchased anything at Y's store recently. Those other people are not going to have any idea that the government didn't have the right to the receipts. And if they did wonder, they aren't likely going to be upset at all. And if they are, then it is one hell of a strange area that he is from.
Anyways, he isn't telling the truth on this. But along the lines of your telco comment, They are going to be confronted by agents claiming they have a legal right. It isn't like they asked specifically if they would help do something illegal. So the order to cooperate could have bypassed the legal departments all together. And not talking to the judges could have been the result of a threat. They said it they couldn't say anything because of national security. So someone had been talking to them about it before they got into court. If I told you that you would be tried and convicted then executed for treason/giving aid and comfort to the enemy if you tell our secretes and I appeared to have the ability to do so (I was over the department of justice and stacked the supreme court) would you risk your life to tell on me? If for some reason you think you would, I suggest your not in the frame of mind that I could actually do it, or your just crazy. Most others would protect themselves. They would do as I said and I think the telco's might be in a similar situation.
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Good as far as it goes (Score:5, Informative)
Talk of the 'Senate' caving is somewhat overstated. Only the intelligence committee has cut a deal. Judiciary is still holding out for details of the crimes that the telcos are alleged to have committed.
That said, it is probably nothing to get too excited about. I don't think that the Bush administration is going to giveup the information demanded, and I think the telcos will eventually get immunity but only after the information has been released under another administration.
I expect some sort of truth and reconciliation commission in the end up.
The Senators Past Voting Record (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Chris_Dodd.htm [ontheissues.org]
Proxy war... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Proxy war... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Proxy war... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're supposed to do what's RIGHT. That's what people voted you into office for. That's why "I was only following orders" wasn't a valid defense at Nuremburg, and it's not a valid defense today.
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If You Want the FISA Bill to Fail . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If You Want the FISA Bill to Fail . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is the outrage?
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Relevent US CODE (Score:4, Informative)
Give him your support! (Score:5, Informative)
Call him at (202) 224-2823, send him a note [chrisdodd.com], contribute to his campaign [wiredforchange.com], or comment on the blog post [chrisdodd.com]. Show him you mean it.
To encourage politicians to stand up for the things we believe in, we have to send a message, loud and clear.
(I do not work for the Dodd campaign. I just believe that if you want to have influence, you've really got to show some reaction when something goes right.)
Since most of the Net goes thru the US (Score:4, Insightful)
looks like Reid might ignore the hold (Score:5, Interesting)
It is simply unfathomable to be why so many Democrats don't take a firm stand against NSA wiretapping, the Iraq war, etc. If they are principled, they would block it. If they only care about their political skins, they would still block Mr. 25% approval rating to make political points. Instead they buy shares in his messes by voting for them.
immunity needs to be off the table (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One Senator Can Stop a Bill? (Score:5, Informative)
That motion to hold the vote then has to be debated and voted upon. A senator could filibuster [wikipedia.org] that debate, and it takes 60% of all current Senators (not just 60% of those present to vote) to break the filibuster (referred to as cloture [wikipedia.org]). Then the vote over the motion to vote on the bill can proceed if there's no filibuster or if the filibuster is broken. Only if a majority vote to hold the vote on the bill will the bill actually be voted upon.
Once the bill itself is up for a vote, there's still the chance it could be defeated.
Parent
Re:One Senator Can Stop a Bill? (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now nobody actually opens a bill for debate if a filibuster is threatened and there isn't a sufficient majority to invoke cloture. I'd like to see the filibuster bluff actually called. Make the minority actually stand up and talk 24x7 straight for a few weeks until they're all carted off to the hospital, and then call for a vote. My understanding is that a sentor only gets one opportunity to speak in a debate, so while they can speak for as long as they'd like they can't take a break (other than adjournments, which the majority can in theory not grant - and the majority doesn't have to all be in the room at the same time). You'd see a lot fewer filibuster threats if people actually had to lose their voices to accomplish them.
Personally I find the whole concept repugnant. Essentially we're watching a bunch of well-paid elected officials act like little children manipulating the rules to avoid the democratic process (ie the majority actually getting what it wants). I don't understand why limited debate wasn't put in place one hundred years ago in the Senate. Ditto for all the parliamentary games that get played with rules and committees. I'm not a big fan of direct democracy but at least it looks like democracy...
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Re:One Senator Can Stop a Bill? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Thank You! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush started this illegal spying 6 months [washingtonpost.com] before he ignored the August 6th, 2001 memo titled Bin Laden determined to Strike in US [wikipedia.org].
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