Senate Sold Our Rights To Verizon And AT&T By Way Of FISA/Amnesty Bill

     From Senator Russ Feingold

    “The Senate passage of this FISA bill, while not surprising, is extremely disappointing. The Senate missed a golden opportunity to pass a bill that would give our intelligence officials the tools they need to go after suspected terrorists while also safeguarding the privacy of law-abiding Americans. Instead the Senate, with the help of too many Democrats, is yet again giving the administration sweeping new powers – and letting it off the hook for its illegal wiretapping program. I hope that our House colleagues will hold a stronger line, and refuse to accept the deeply flawed Senate bill. The calls from Americans tired of having their rights and their Constitution trampled on by this administration are only growing louder. Congress should stand up for the American people, and the Constitution, by opposing such a badly flawed bill.”

   Once again, the citizens of America have been fucked up the ass by our so-called elected Representatives in the Senate. I do include Senator Harry Reid as one who stabbed us in the heart even though he voted " nay " on cloture. Mr. Reid could have solved this problem with FISA and telecom amnesty simply by using the House version of FISA. All of this bullshit could have been averted from the start, but I guess that all of that cash from the telecom industry was just to much to pass on.

   I'll have much more on this subject later in the evening and certainly on tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom amnesty, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, the Senate

Telecom's Ready to Enjoy Amnesty For Criminal Acts: There Will Be No Filibuster By Chris Dodd

    Time for a little update on the FISA bill and amnesty for criminals who gave our personal records ( calls, emails,ect. ) to the Bush Crime Syndicate ( NSA ).

    As we all know, the vote on this junk FISA bill is tomorrow and this is looking as if the Democrats in the Senate ( Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, and others ) are going to get on their collective knees and suck Bush's dick once again and give him and the telecom's the amnesty that he needs to avoid possible prosecution for felony acts of lawbreaking for spying on United States citizens.

   Glenn Greenwald on what will happen in the Senate tomorrow.

What the Senate is about to do tomorrow is very simple: it will (a) vest vast new powers in the President to spy on the calls and emails of American citizens, inside the U.S., with no warrants, and (b) grant amnesty to telecoms that broke multiple federal laws. In sum, it will legalize the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" that the President ordered for years in violation of the law -- a program aimed at eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, inside the U.S.

   So what about Chris Dodd's threat of a filibuster?

     Contrary to the emphatic promise Dodd repeatedly made during his presidential campaign to lead a filibuster on the floor of the Senate to stop any bill that has telecom immunity in it (a promise which, incidentally, led to hundreds of thousands of dollars being donated to his campaign), there isn't going to be any actual filibuster tomorrow. Under the Unanimous Consent framework agreed to by all Senators (including Dodd), there will be a 60-vote requirement to invoke cloture on the FISA bill and for ultimate passage, followed by an allotted 4 hours of post-cloture "debate," but there will not be any real filibuster to prevent cloture. When Leahy says that he will "join" Dodd's filibuster, what he means is that he will merely cast a vote against cloture.

Dodd's efforts against this bill have been quite commendable, and the UC Agreement isn't completely worthless. It means that Democrats do not need 60 votes, or even 50 votes, to stop this bill. Rather, they only need 41 Senators willing to oppose cloture (which everyone knows they're not going to get).

Still, Dodd is not, after all, going to lead an actual filibuster on the floor of the Senate to stop the bill. Worse, the Republicans are going to be permitted to impose 60-vote requirements on key Democratic amendments without actually having to filibuster at all -- exactly the situation which Harry Reid vowed just two weeks ago he would not permit.    Salon

   So once again, bend-over Harry is going to kiss George Bush's ass to score what he thinks are brownie points for later on. Is this man to old to handle his job or is he just totally dumb, stupid, and ignorant? I guess that he could be all of them. Either way, he needs to either find himself a nice quiet place to retire to, or fired from his position in government.

   One question? Do We The People even have any real Democrats in the Senate?

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom amnesty, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, Unanimous Consent, George Bush, filibuster, Democrats, cloture vote