Obama's Statement On FISA

  This is an interesting statement from Barack Obama to Firedoglake and I like it!

Statement of Senator Obama:

I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill.

Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.

The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.

No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people - not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed.

That is why I am co-sponsoring Senator Dodd's amendment to remove the immunity provision. Secrecy must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens – and set an example to the world – that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient.

A grassroots movement of Americans has pushed this issue to the forefront. You have come together across this country. You have called upon our leaders to adhere to the Constitution. You have sent a message to the halls of power that the American people will not permit the abuse of power – and demanded that we reclaim our core values by restoring the rule of law.

It's time for Washington to hear your voices, and to act. I share your commitment to this cause, and will stand with you in the fights to come. And when I am President, the American people will once again be able to trust that their government will stand for justice, and will defend the liberties that we hold so dear as vigorously as we defend our security.

   An idea for you from DK:

    So here's our new target. Call, fax, and e-mail Senator Rockefeller and the likely suspects among the Democrats to urge them to make sure that all of the Democratic caucus's FISA amendments get to the Senate floor and that they establish a 50 vote threshold on Democratic amendments.

Technorati Tags: Senator Rockefeller, Chris Dodd, FISA, Barack Obama

FISA And The Senate

  Okay, so we finally got our representatives to do the right thing for once and to vote " nay " on cloture of this piece of legislation. So the debate, which Republicans did not want, will continue. This is a good thing, but, what comes next?

  Now that all of the progressive blogs and other organizations who rounded up hundreds of thousands of citizens who called their Representatives and voiced their opinions have all patted themselves on their backs, myself included, it is time for a reality check.

  The Democrats in the Senate managed to embarrass and humiliate Resident Bush and the rest of those communist GOPers, which is great. Even poor old Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) went cowering off into the darkness after realizing that his cloture bullshit was not going to happen. McConnell is, unfortunately, my representative and it was a great day to watch this piece of shits tactics go down in flames.

  So what will the Dems in the Senate do now. I am of the opinion that the only reason the Democrats stopped cloture on the FISA Bill was because they got pissed off that the Republicans wouldn't allow any debate or votes on the Amendments that Dems wanted added to this bill. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt it. Senator Reid is the one I am concerned about since he has supported the telecom amnesty part of this bill from the beginning. I doubt that voters changed his mind one bit.

  The FISA extension  may expire this week and we will no doubt then have maybe 30 days of debating, discussion, and then probably capitulation on part of the Democrats.   Just my thoughts.

   We can't let up on our Senators on either side of the aisle. We should continue to email, fax, call or visit them to let them know that telecom amnesty is not an option in any way, shape, or form. The Progressives/Democrats have the momentum and we should make damned sure that it stays this way. Don't slack off now because WE, THE PEOPLE  proved that we can be a force to deal with!!

Technorati Tags: FISA, Senate, telecom amnesty, Democrats, Congress

Mitch McConnell's Cloture Vote Loses:FISA Debate To Continue!!

  From  DK

Update 5: Cloture defeated by a vote of 48 ayes to 45 nays! Debate continues on the FISA bill. Take a bow, this is a tremendous victory and a big humiliation for Bush and his Republican enablers. - smintheus
Update 6: Now the Senate is proceeding to the second cloture vote, this time to vote on a bill to extend the current temporary FISA bill for 30 days beyond its expiration date on Feb. 5. Republicans are trying to block cloture on this bill. McConnell was blubbering on the floor that the bill is no good because Bush has threatened to veto it. He doesn't seem to realize that there are a lot of Dems who'd like to call Bush's bluff: If Bush vetoes the extension, then it shows he doesn't think the FISA bill is essential - or else he cares more about giving telecoms amnesty than he does about protecting America. - smintheus
Update 7: The second cloture vote fails as well (by the same margin, 48 'aye', 45 'nay'). So we're back to debating the original bill. - smintheus

  I would say the the voices of the American citizens has been heard in the United States Senate by some true " Patriots " for once! And it is about fucking time!

   We did have one Democrat who voted  " nay " but then changed her vote to " aye". That would have been Mary Landrieu. I guess that her spine needed some more vacation time.

  That crying sound that you hear is both George Bush and Dick Cheney, down in his bunker.

   CORRECTION: There were actually 4 Democrats who voted on the Republican side. They were Senators Pryor, Ben Nelson, Lincoln, and Landrieu.

Technorati Tags: Mitch McConnell, FISA, cloture vote, George Bush, Mary Landrieu

Senator Clinton's Statement On FISA

   By way of  Firedoglake at DK

    Hillary Clinton's statement on the FISA legislation:

Today, I will vote against Republican efforts to shortchange the debate on the FISA Amendments Act, important legislation that would modernize our surveillance laws and give our nation's intelligence professionals the tools they need to fight terrorism and make our country more secure. Rather than allow the Senate the opportunity to consider important amendments to this vital legislation, Republicans are instead blocking meaningful debate on this bill by playing procedural games, choosing instead to score cheap political points at the expense of our Homeland Security.

This legislation deserves a thorough debate. Several provisions - including those which would have a profound impact on the civil liberties of Americans - need to be the subject of careful deliberation. For example, the bill under consideration gives telecommunication companies blanket retroactive immunity for their alleged cooperation in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. I continue to believe that a grant of retroactive immunity is wrong, and I have cosponsored Senator Dodd's amendment to remove that provision from the bill. The Bush Administration has blatantly disregarded Americans' civil liberties over the past seven years, and I simply will not trust them to protect Americans' privacy rights. With the temporary Protect America Act set to expire on February 1st, I strongly believe that we need to pass balanced legislation that protects our civil liberties and the rule of law while giving our law enforcement and intelligence agencies the tools they need to protect our country.

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, FISA, FISA Amendments Act

FISA And The Cloture Vote

  Today is the day that we find out who the truer " patriots " are in our congress as the vote for cloture on the FISA/Protect America Act/Teloco Amnesty bill come before the Senate. It looks like both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be in D.C. to vote!

By mcjoan at DailyKos

Bumped. Today's the day, folks. Rumor is that McCain will not be on the floor this afternoon, but we can't trust rumor. We need to flip three of the Dem Senators listed below, all of whom voted with the Republicans to table the Judiciary version of the bill. Put the pressure on them. mcjoan

Jane breaks the great news that Senator Clinton will be on the floor tomorrow to vote against McConnell's cloture vote on the Intelligence Committee's pro-telco amnesty FISA bill. Beating this vote is critical, and good for Clinton for taking the time out of the campaign to do her current job. The Obama campaign hasn't yet said if he will be there, too, though he is scheduled to have a fundraiser in DC at 4:00. [Update: That was fast! Jane is now reporting that Obama will be there to vote no, too. This is great news. Thank you, Senators, for listening to us, and in turn, sending this critical message.]

This is good news for keeping this fight going, and good news for us. Citizen action, our pressure,  is making a difference. The massive push back from the left has actually succeeded in throwing a monkey wrench into the works. That's not yet an out and out win, but it's movement in the right direction. Defeating this cloture vote is more movement. Forcing either a short-term extension of the PAA, or letting the bill lapse all together buys more time, and more opportunity, as Glenn explains.

Even just a two-week or one-month extension will allow more time to marshall the opposition to telecom immunity and a new FISA bill and to do what's possible to encourage the House to stand firm behind their bill -- in exactly the way that the Dodd Delay in December prevented quick and easy resolution. The longer this drags on without resolution, the more possible it is to push the opposition to a tipping point, and sometimes unexpected developments or even some luck (such as McConnell's overplaying his hand on Thursday) can prevent it all from happening.

As the events of the last two months demonstrate, if citizen opposition is channeled the right way, it can make a genuine difference in affecting the course of events in Washington. Defeating telecom immunity will keep alive the lawsuits that will almost certainly reveal to some extent what the Government did in illegally spying on Americans over the last six years or, at the very least, produce a judicial adjudication as to its illegality. And, in turn, the effects from that could be extremely significant. Because victories are so rare, it's easy to get lulled into believing that none of these campaigns are ever effective and that citizens can never affect any of it, which is precisely why it's so important to remind ourselves periodically of how untrue that proposition is.

So keep pushing, clear up until 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, EST.

The Senators we need to convince of this are those who voted with the Republicans to table the Leahy substitute amendment, the version of the bill that contained all of those protections, and didn't allow telco amnesty. One of them, Rockefeller, has already said he'll vote no on cloture. Call the rest of the Senators and tell them to stand with their majority on Monday's cloture vote and vote no.

• Bayh (202) 224-5623
• Carper (202) 224-2441
• Inouye (202) 224-3934
• Johnson (202) 224-5842
• Landrieu (202)224-5824
• McCaskill (202) 224-6154
• Mikulski (202) 224-4654
• Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274
• Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551
• Pryor (202) 224-2353
• Salazar (202) 224-5852

In addition, call or e-mail your own Senators. Both CREDO and EFF have great tools to make it easy.

Technorati Tags: cloture, FISA, Protect America Act, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, senate

FISA & Protect America Act: Telecom Amnesty

  From Salon

Glenn Greenwald

Saturday January 26, 2008 08:34 EST

More disruptions to the Cheney/Rockefeller plan

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the FISA and telecom immunity conflict, there is something quite unique about how things have proceeded that I think is worth noting. Telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping powers are exactly the types of issues that normally generate very little controversy or debate. Identically, the bill advocated by Dick Cheney, Jay Rockefeller and Mitch McConnell is the type of bill that is normally passed, quickly and quietly, by Congress without any trouble. That isn't happening this time, and it's worth looking at why that is.

The establishment media has virtually ignored these matters from the beginning. Most establishment-serving pundits who have paid any attention -- the David Ignatiuses and Joe Kleins and Fred Hiatts -- have done so by advocating, as usual, the Establishment position: retroactive immunity and warrantless eavesdropping powers are the right thing to do. Although there is no citizen-constituency whatsoever crying out for telecom immunity or new warrantless eavesdropping powers, the forces behind those provisions are the ones which typically dictate what Congress does: namely, the largest corporations and their lobbyists, who have been working, as always, in the dark to ensure that the law they want is enacted.

That's typically the way Washington works -- the most significant laws are seamlessly enacted with little real debate or attention, driven by corporations and lobbyists working in secret with Senators, cheered on by the Serious media pundits, with bipartisan pools of lawmakers silently and obediently on board. And once those forces line up behind any measure, it is normally almost impossible to stop it -- not just stop it, but even disrupt it at all. That's the insulated Beltway parlor, virtually impervious to outside influences, least of all the opinions of the citizen-rabble.

All of those standard Beltway forces are squarely lined up behind telecom immunity and new eavesdropping powers, and yet, things are not proceeding smoothly for them at all. Back in December, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller and Mitch McConnell scheduled just a couple of days for the FISA debate because they assumed that was all that would be needed to deliver quickly and quietly to the President everything he demanded.

But when Chris Dodd and others impeded that plan by obstructing and filibustering, Reid just cynically assumed that once Dodd was out of the presidential race, he would cease with the "grandstanding" and allow the Senate to function the way it is supposed to: collegially delivering to the Establishment what it wants, without disruption.

But Dodd's commitment to impede these corrupt and lawless measures is clearly authentic and was not grounded in cynical political concerns -- as was obvious to anyone uninfected by the jaded Beltway Virus. Dodd's willingness to join Russ Feingold in single-mindedly pursuing what are considered extreme and alienating steps in the Senate to stop this bill -- holds, filibusters and withholding of unanimous consent agreements -- along with Dodd's increasingly eloquent and relentless advocacy on behalf of the Constitution and the rule of law, has disrupted the Cheney/Reid/Rockefeller plan just enough so that it may now unravel altogether.

Dodd has been in the Senate for 24 years. As he is the first to acknowledge, engaging in filibusters and obstruction and defiance of his party's leadership are things he has almost never done. Dodd isn't Russ Feingold. He has been the picture of the establishment Senator in the party's "liberal" wing, rarely deviating and almost never standing alone to oppose the party leadership. So what has changed? Why has he been so willing so tenaciously to pursue this fight -- even in the face of overt though anonymous threats that he could alienate his party's leadership and lose influence as Banking Committee Chairman if he persists?

Dodd himself provided the answer in his Senate floor speech (h/t Kitt):

I've promised to fight those scare tactics with all the power any one senator can muster. And I'm here today to keep that promise.

For several months now, I've listened to the building frustration over this immunity and this administration's campaign of lawlessness. I've seen it in person, in mail, online -- the passion and eloquence of citizens who are just fed up. They've inspired me more than they know.

That is exactly what happened. When the administration first demanded retroactive immunity in the wake of the passage of the Protect America Act, nobody was talking about that issue outside of blogs and grass-roots and civil liberties organizations -- the roster of annoying citizen-groups that are typically ignored. But the pressure built; it became increasingly intense and relentless; it found a political official in Chris Dodd willing to ride it; and it unquestionably has altered the course of how all of this has played out.

As a result, even the three presidential candidates have become increasingly attentive to it -- not enough, to be sure, but more than before. Strictly in response to calls from blog readers, John Edwards issued a series of statements against telecom immunity this week, even sending out a mailing to his email list solely on this topic, despite the fact that he is in the middle of a critical primary fight in South Carolina. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been making commitments to increase their involvement, with Hillary even vowing to speak out against it today. This week, Barack Obama also made his most emphatic statement to date: "I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill. . . . That is why I am proud to stand with Sen. Dodd and a grassroots movement of Americans who are standing up for our civil liberties and the rule of law."

The lead Editorial in The New York Times this morning is devoted to lambasting Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller for their active efforts to ensure passage of the Cheney/Rockefeller FISA bill. After failing to do so the first time around, the House in November passed a decent bill that contains no immunity and has numerous safeguards on eavesdropping powers, and -- at least as of now -- appears unlikely to capitulate. The only reason any of that happened is because enough citizens were sufficiently intense and active to catapult this issue to the fore and prevent the quiet and easy enactment of telecom immunity and new warrantless eavesdropping powers. In the absence of that, this would have all been over with, easily and without trouble, back in December.

There is never any shortage of super-sophisticated cynics to come along and say how none of this matters, how it's so pitifully naive to think that any difference can ever be made, how the System is so Corrupted and the Deck So Stacked Against Us that everything is doomed and defeat is the inevitable option. And there is an element of truth to the premises of that defeatist mindset. The principal reason blogs exist, after all, is precisely because all other institutions intended to provide some adversarial check on what our government does -- the establishment media, the "opposition party," the Congress -- typically do the opposite: they serve as enablers of it rather than checks on it. That's all true enough.

But what incidents such as this one conclusively demonstrate is that it is always possible, if enough citizen intensity is mustered and the right strategy is formulated, for citizens to disrupt and defeat the best-laid plans of our corrupt political establishment. There's a comfort and temptation in denying that truth. Those who insist that defeat is inevitable and All is Lost are relieved of the burdensome task of trying. But defeat occurs because the right strategy isn't found, not because it is inevitable.

As always, the significance of what has occurred here shouldn't be overstated. The only reason Senate Democrats became angry on Thursday is because Republicans actually refused to allow Democrats to capitulate, as they were ready and eager to do. Senate Republicans blocked Democrats from caving in completely to Bush because they didn't want this issue resolved. They want to ensure that Bush, in Monday's State of the Union address, can accuse Senate Democrats of failing to act on FISA, and thus attack and mock them as being weak on national security and causing the Terrorists to be able to Slaughter Us All.

And, rather pitifully, some Democrats are shocked -- so very upset -- that, yet again, their demonstrated willingness to give the Republicans everything they demanded has not prompted a Good, Nice, Courteous Response. "We did everything you told us to do. Why are you being so mean and unfair?" That sad posture is what led even Jay Rockefeller apparently to announce that he will vote against cloture on his own bill.

Worse, even if Democrats prevent the Republicans' cloture vote on Monday, that will mean we'll just be right back to where we were before that happened: with a series of votes that will almost certainly end in the Senate with some form of retroactive immunity and vastly expanded warrantless eavesdropping powers. So it isn't as though there is some victory here yet that is complete or even all that meaningful.

Still, it is very worth doing what's possible to encourage Democrats to sustain a filibuster on Monday and prevent a cloture vote on the Senate Intelligence Committee bill, which will mean that there will be no new law in place before the Protect America Act expires (February 2). Bush will then have to choose -- at least as Reid is boldly promising -- between some short-term extension of the Protect America Act (with no immunity) or have the bill lapse altogether.

Even just a two-week or one-month extension will allow more time to marshall the opposition to telecom immunity and a new FISA bill and to do what's possible to encourage the House to stand firm behind their bill -- in exactly the way that the Dodd Delay in December prevented quick and easy resolution. The longer this drags on without resolution, the more possible it is to push the opposition to a tipping point, and sometimes unexpected developments or even some luck (such as McConnell's overplaying his hand on Thursday) can prevent it all from happening.

As the events of the last two months demonstrate, if citizen opposition is channeled the right way, it can make a genuine difference in affecting the course of events in Washington. Defeating telecom immunity will keep alive the lawsuits that will almost certainly reveal to some extent what the Government did in illegally spying on Americans over the last six years or, at the very least, produce a judicial adjudication as to its illegality. And, in turn, the effects from that could be extremely significant. Because victories are so rare, it's easy to get lulled into believing that none of these campaigns are ever effective and that citizens can never affect any of it, which is precisely why it's so important to remind ourselves periodically of how untrue that proposition is.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book “How Would a Patriot Act?,” a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, “A Tragic Legacy“, examines the Bush legacy.

© Salon.com

Technorati Tags: FISA, Protect America Act, Chris Dodd, Hary Reid, Congress

Harry Reid's Statement After The Republican Antics Over FISA On Thursday

    This is a rough transcript provided by TalkingPointsMemo

We want, if necessary, within the confines of the law, to do wiretapping of these bad people. But, Mr. President, Having said that we want to do it within the confines of our Law and our constitution. We want to make sure that this wiretapping does not include innocent Americans who just happen to be part of what they're collecting. That's what the American People expect us to do.

So I again say Mr. President, no one can question our patriotism, our willingness to keep our homeland safe. We have tried to move forward on this legislation. We have tried in many different ways. What we have been doing today and yesterday is moving forward on this legislation just as the distinguished Senator from California said. There are amendments that will make this legislation better. Now that's in the eye of the beholder. We all understand that. But shouldn't the Senate have the ability to vote on those amendments?

No matter what we do as a Senate it has to have a conference with the house. They have already passed their legislation. But we have been stalled every step of the way. Every step of the way, the Feingold Amendment, for example, was offered certainly it is germane. But he is being told, we're being told he can't get a vote on this amendment because it concerns the FISA court orders well, his amendment was discussed at length previously half of it was accepted on a bipartisan basis much the other half wasn't. But certainly he is entitled to a vote Senator Whitehouse, Senator Feingold and I don't want to embarrass him – he is really a legal scholar. He went to one of our highest Law Schools in the world, he is a Rhodes Scholar.

Senator Whitehouse has been Attorney General of the State of Rhode Island and is certainly, Mr. President, known all over the country as someone who understands the law. He has been a tremendously good person as a member of the United States Senate. He served on both committees – the intelligence committee on the Judiciary Committee. He is a thoughtful person. The legislation that came out of the intelligence committee should be improved and as a pen of the judiciary committee he worked to have that improved. He offered an amendment a short time ago, sough to offer an amendment, a major main amendment concerning – a germane amendment concerning minimization which means if you pick up by mistake an American you drop that you push that out of the way that isn't going to be made public in any manner we want to vote on that. It seems everyone would vote for it. I would certainly hope it is but there is an objection to even having a vote on that amendment. Senator Cardin, along time member of the congress relatively new member of the senate but a long time experience member of the congress of the United States sought to offer an amendment, a germane amendment shortening the sunset provision. The Bill that is before us that came out of the intelligence committee is for six years.

Now, Mr. President, things are changing rapidly in our country and in the world as it relates to things electronic. We don't know what is going to take place in regard to terrorism, violence or what's going to take place with our ability to do better jobs electronically to uncover some of the stuff we believe can be uncovered. He wants this legislation not to be for six years, for yours. That is – for six years but four years. He has been unable to offer that simple amendment. Senator Feinstein has just given a very fine statement seeking consent to offer a major main amendment on, excuse -- A germane amendment on FISA. There have been editorials virtually in every state of the union in the newspapers saying that it should be the law, but she has not been able to offer that amendment. Senator Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, Mr. President, I wanted it would offer an amendment. That is so rational, so important, he says, let's have the inspector general do an investigation about the whole wiretapping program to find out what has taken place who has been involved in it and report back to congress. He sets a reasonable time. Guess what? We can't even vote on that. He can't even offer the Amendment.

I say to my friends that it doesn't matter what we try to do, we can't do it. It appears that the minority, the president, and the republicans want failure. They don't want a bill. So that's why they're jamming this forward. I am going to vote against cloture on this Mr. President. It is not fair that we have a major piece of legislation like this and were not even allowed to offer whether the bill should be four years or six years? Or an amendment on millions of Americans picked up by mistake are brought out in the public eye. Or senator Feingold's amendment dealing with how court orders are issued. A real good amendment, an important amendment dealing with how court orders are issued. A real good amendment, an important amendment, if there were ever a catch 22, this is it. What were being asked to do is irrational, irresponsible and wrong. Where does this catch 22 come from.

[…]

I've said we will take a 30-day extension. We'll take a two-week extension, we'll take a 12-Month extension, we will take an 18-Month extension.

I tell all my friends I have been told and I appreciate very much my distinguished counterpart, Senator McConnell who has told me he has a cloture petition all signed. He will file it as soon as I yield the floor to him. I would say to all my friends that under regular order we will later that 1:00 Monday so the 30 hours runs out at its original time on Tuesday. If cloture is not invoked and I am not going to vote for cloture, unless the president agrees to some extension time, the program will fail.

I don't know any way out of this. But I in good conscience cannot support this legislation and at least unless we have a vote on retroactivity of immunity, I can't vote on it for cloture unless some of the very basic Amendments that people want to offer are allowed they would all agree on very short time lines.

No one is questioning spending a lot of time. We, the Democrats, are not in any way trying to stall this bill. We've been trying to expedite it for a long time now.

Technorati Tags: FISA, George Bush, Harry Reid, Amendments, Senate, telecom amnesty, cloture, Mitch McConnell, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Feingold

Those Shameless Republican and the FISA Bill

  Filibuster, Filibuster,Filibuster! Those morally corrupt Republicans know on limits when it comes to fucking something up!

  They filibustered and objected to all of the amendments which were included in this bill, thereby stopping any chance of this bill going forward.

  As is usual for the Dumbo-crats, most were left clueless as to the tricks of the GOP and to how this happened. I said most, not all.

  Russ Feingold in an email to DailyKos:

"The conduct of Senate Republicans yesterday was shameless.  After weeks of insisting that it is absolutely critical to finish the FISA legislation by February 1, even going so far as to object to a one-month extension of the Protect America Act, they obstructed all efforts to actually work on the bill.  Now they want to simply ram the deeply flawed Intelligence Committee bill through the Senate.  They refused to allow amendments to be offered or voted on, including my straight-forward amendment to require that the government provide copies of FISA Court orders and pleadings for review in a classified setting, so that Members of Congress can understand how FISA has been interpreted and is being applied.  If the Republicans succeed in cutting off debate on Monday, the Senate won't even get to vote on the amendment Senator Dodd and I want to offer to deny retroactive immunity to telecom companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration's illegal wiretapping program.

"Democrats should not allow the Republicans to ram this bill through the Senate without amendments.  Monday's cloture vote will be a test of whether the majority is willing to stand up to the administration and stand up for our rights."

 

   As I see it right now, our sorry group of Democrats are on the way to bowing down to the Bush administration once again. This should not be since the Democrats have the support of the majority of Americans.

The survey shows nearly two-thirds of poll respondents say the government should be required to get an individual warrant before listening in on conversations between US citizens and people abroad. Close to six in 10 people oppose an administration proposal to allow intelligence agencies to seek "blanket warrants" that would let them eavesdrop of foreigners for up to a year no additional judicial oversight required if the foreign suspect spoke to an American. And a majority are against a plan to give legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping.

The poll also found 57 percent of likely voters opposed telecom immunity, compared to just a third who supported it.

   

  I sometimes wonder if the majority of Democrats in the Senate approve of these bills they way that Bush wants them since they always seem to give in to his sorry ass. Are these battles over such things just a show to appease the masses?

Technorati Tags: FISA, immunity, Russ Feingold, Protect America Act, GOP, republicans, the Senate, Chris Dodd

FISA Reform And Bush's Internet Monitoring: Telecom Amnesty Through The Back Door

  With the FISA Bill battle going on in the Senate, one of George Bush's Crime Family members has come up with a new idea, total internet monitoring.

  What does this have to go with granting the telecoms amnesty? More fear mongering and another new Bill?

   Cross-posted from CommonDreams

Published on Friday, January 25, 2008 by TruthDig.com

The End of Privacy

by Elliot Cohen

Amid the controversy brewing in the Senate over Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform, the Bush administration appears to have changed its strategy and is devising a bold new plan that would strip away FISA protections in favor of a system of wholesale government monitoring of every American’s Internet activities. Now the national director of intelligence is predicting a disastrous cyber-terrorist attack on the U.S. if this scheme isn’t instituted.

It is no secret that the Bush administration has already been spying on the e-mail, voice-over-IP, and other Internet exchanges between American citizens since as early as and possibly earlier than Sept. 11, 2001. The National Security Agency has set up shop in the hubs of major telecom corporations, notably AT&T, installing equipment that makes copies of the contents of all Internet traffic, routing it to a government database and then using natural language parsing technology to sift through and analyze the data using undisclosed search criteria. It has done this without judicial oversight and obviously without the consent of the millions of Americans under surveillance. Given any rational interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, its mass spying operation is illegal and unconstitutional.

But now the administration wants to make these illegal activities legal. And why is that? According to National Director of Intelligence Mike McConnell, who is now drafting the proposal, an attack on a single U.S. bank by the 9/11 terrorists would have had a far more serious impact on the U.S. economy than the destruction of the Twin Towers. “My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens,” said McConnell. So the way to prevent this from happening, he claims, is to give the government the power to spy at will on the content of all e-mails, file transfers and Web searches.

McConnell’s prediction of something “horrendous” happening unless we grant government this authority has a tone similar to that of the fear-mongering call to arms against terrorism that President Bush sounded before taking us to war in Iraq. Now, Americans are about to be asked to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights because of a vague and unsupported prediction of the dangers and costs of cyber-terrorism.

The analogy with the campaign to frighten us into war with Iraq gets even stronger when it becomes evident that along with the establishing of American forces in Iraq, the cyber-security McConnell is calling for was, all along, part of the strategic plan, devised by Dick Cheney and several other present and former high-level Bush administration officials, to establish America as the world’s supreme superpower. This plan, known as the Project for the New American Century, unequivocally recognized “an imperative” for government to not only secure the Internet against cyber-attacks but also to control and use it offensively against its adversaries. The Project for the New American Century also maintained that “the process of transformation” it envisioned (which included the militarization and control of the Internet) was “likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor.” All that appears to be lacking to make the analogy complete is the “horrendous” cyber-attack-the chilling analog of the 9/11 attacks-that McConnell now predicts.

Apparently, the Bush administration had hoped to continue its mass surveillance program in secret, but as many as 40 civil suits were filed against AT&T and other telecoms, threatening to blow the government’s illegal spying activities wide open. Unable to have these cases dismissed in appellate court by once again playing the national-security card, the administration drafted and tried to push through Congress a version of the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 that gave retroactive immunity to telecom corporations for their assistance in helping the government spy en mass on Americans without a court warrant. The administration’s plan was to use Congress’ passage of this provision of immunity to nullify any cause of civil action against the telecoms, thereby pre-empting the exposure of the administration’s own illegal activities.

Two versions of the FISA bill emerged, one from the Senate Intelligence Committee drafted largely by Cheney himself, which contained the immunity provision, and another from the Senate Judiciary Committee that did not contain the provision. Although Senate Majority leader Harry Reid inauspiciously chose the former to bring to the Senate floor, the bill was surrounded by much controversy. There had been well organized grass-roots pressure to stop it from passing, and the House had already passed a version that did not include the retroactive immunity provision. Thus, in the face of a filibuster threat by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Reid postponed the discussion until the January 2008 session.

Now Reid has tried to put off the FISA Amendments Act once again by asking Republicans to extend, for one more month, the Protect America Act of 2007, an interim FISA reform act that is due to sunset in February. However, Cheney has urged Congress to pass his version of the FISA Amendments Act now. “We can always revisit a law that’s on the books. That’s part of the job of the elected branches of government,” Cheney said. “But there is no sound reason to pass critical legislation … and slap an expiration date on it.”

Cheney’s point about the possibility of later revisiting the FISA Amendments Act after it becomes law may foreshadow replacing it in the coming months with a law based on McConnell’s plan, which is due to emerge in February. This would mark a gradual descent into divesting Americans entirely of their Fourth Amendment right to privacy-first by blocking their ability to sue the telecoms for violating their privacy and then by giving the government the same legal protection. After all, the FISA Amendments Act still requires the government to get warrants for spying on American citizens even if it does not afford adequate judicial oversight in enforcing this mandate. McConnell’s proposal, on the other hand, would make no bones about spying on Americans without warrants, thereby contradicting any meaningful FISA reform.

President Bush has already made clear he would veto any FISA bill that did not give retroactive immunity to the telecoms. However, if McConnell’s soon to be unveiled spy-at-will plan is turned into law, a separate law giving retroactive immunity to the telecoms would be unnecessary. All Bush and Cheney would need to do to protect themselves from criminal liability would be to make the new spy-at-will law retroactive in effect from the inception of the illegal NSA surveillance program. This would also be sufficient to deflate the civil suits filed against the telecoms because the past illegal spying activities that these companies conducted on behalf of the government would then become “legal.” Indeed, the Bush administration has already done this sort of legal retro-dating and nullifying of civil rights and gotten it through Congress. For example, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 conveniently gave Bush the power to decide whether someone-including himself-is guilty of torture, irrespective of the Geneva Conventions, and it made this authority retroactive to Nov. 26, 1997.

Whatever the final disposition of FISA in the coming weeks or months, the administration is now bracing to take a much more aggressive posture that would seek abridgement of civil liberties in its usual fashion: by fear-mongering and warnings that our homeland will be attacked by terrorists (this time of the menacing hacker variety) unless we the people surrender our Fourth Amendment right to privacy and give government the authority to inspect even our most personal and intimate messages.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the resolve of the Bush administration. But it would be a bigger mistake for Americans not to stand united against this familiar pattern of government scare tactics and manipulation. There are grave dangers to the survival of democracy posed by allowing any present or future government unfettered access to all of our private electronic communications. These dangers must be carefully weighed against the dubious and unproven benefits that granting such an awesome power to government might have on fending off cyber-attacks.

Elliot D. Cohen, PhD, is a media ethicist and critic. His most recent book is “The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government Are Turning America Into a Dictatorship.” He is a first-prize winner of the 2007 Project Censored Award.

Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C.

Technorati Tags: FISA, George Bush, internet monitoring, Military Commissions Act, NSA

FISA Intel Committee Report Has A Flaw But Will Dodd Confront It?

  We all know about the battle going on in the Senate over the FISA Bill and it's telecom immunity provision which Bush wants in the bill so that his sorry ass will be covered once again  for breaking the law.

Packerland progressive, by way of the DailyKos, takes  a look at one way in which Dodd and Feingold could stop this lame excuse for a bill bead in it's tracks. Can you say " Point of Order "? This FISA Bill has some flaws in it which can be exploited in order to make this bill DOA.

Packerland progressive :...I wanted to spend a diary highlighting what appears to be a fatal procedural flaw in the "Committee Report" which represents the Intelligence Committee's version (i.e., the bad bill providing Telco amnesty).  Why does it matter?  Because it creates one more way for Dodd, Feingold, and (whoever else steps up to protect the constitution) to stop this thing dead in its tracks on the Senate floor.

When a Committee reports out a bill to the Senate floor, it prepares a committee report, describing present law, how the proposed legislation would change present law, and the reasons the Committee recommends making such changes to the law.  And what the above rule says is that, as part of that review, the Committee is supposed to evaluate the impact the proposed change would have on individuals and businesses, including "a determination of the impact on the personal privacy of the individuals affected."

And one would almost think that the FISA legislation is the poster child for such a rule, requiring the Committee with jurisdiction to evaluate and report to the full Senate its analysis of how the legislation would impact personal privacy.  One might almost think that such an evaluation would be perhaps the single most important thing the Intelligence Committee should have been doing in the course of its markup of the Bill. So, what does the Regulatory Impact Statement of the Committee Report (Senate Report 110-209) say on this matter?

EVALUATION OF REGULATORY IMPACT
In accordance with paragraph 11(b)(2) of rule XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee deems it impractical to evaluate in this report the regulatory impact of provisions of this bill due to the classified nature of the operations conducted pursuant to this legislation.   DailyKos

  This is where both Dodd and Feingold have the upper hand. Since the impact on personal privacy was never done by the committee, Dodd and/or Feingold can call for a point of order, pointing out that things were not done by the Senate rules. This bill then goes nowhere until things are done in the proper manner.

  You can just hear all of the crying and howling and screaming going on if Dodd/Feingold do the right thing on this matter.

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom immuntiy, George Bush, Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, Harry Reid, U.S. Senate

Will Bush Get Amnesty For The Teleco's In The FISA Bill?

  Let us hope not as this would open a door for you and I that we do not want opened. I do not want to be spied on by my government and I seriously doubt that you do. Our representatives in the Senate shouldn't even be considering granting amnesty to the phone companies ( ATT,Verizon,ect.) for handing over you and I's phone call records or our emails. Amnesty to these jerks not only lets them off of the hook for doing something that is illegal, but, it lets our Dumb-ass In Chief ( Bush ) and his crime family off of the hook also.

   mcjoan at DailyKos has an interesting look at Bush and the phone companies in light of the FISA bill.

The news that the telcos pulled their wiretaps because the weren't getting paid reveals two truths: the telcos aren't great patriots doing their duty for national security--they're greedy and willing to break the law if they can boost the bottom line; the Bush administration doesn't care enough about national security to pay the freaking bill for it and is using this issue as yet another bludgeon to beat up on Democrats.

Too many times we've seen the Dems capitulate at the mere threat of that bludgeon. It doesn't need to happen again, because that fear is baseless. Consider this recently release poll commissioned by the ACLU, (via Greenwald):

Majorities of voters on both sides of the political spectrum oppose key provisions in President Bush's proposal to modify foreign surveillance laws that could ensnare Americans, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The survey shows nearly two-thirds of poll respondents say the government should be required to get an individual warrant before listening in on conversations between US citizens and people abroad. Close to six in 10 people oppose an administration proposal to allow intelligence agencies to seek "blanket warrants" that would let them eavesdrop of foreigners for up to a year no additional judicial oversight required if the foreign suspect spoke to an American. And  a majority are against a plan to give legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping.

"Across the board, we find opposition to the administration's FISA agenda," pollster Mark Mellman said Tuesday.

Last month, we generated over half a million calls and e-mails to Senate offices in support of Senator Dodd's filibuster of telco amnesty. We need to double that number this week. We need to tell our Senators that we stand with the majority of Americans in opposition to amnesty, and they should be more afraid of us voters than of a lame duck, failing president.

Particularly, those calls need to go to our presidential candidates. Again, Greenwald has details:

The three leading recipients of telecom money for this election cycle are, unsurprisingly, the three sitting Senators running for President (with two Democratic members who are key to amnesty -- Jay Rockefeller and Rahm Emanuel -- close behind). That's how "Washington works" -- the process they are all pledging to battle and change. Needless to say, all of the viable GOP presidential candidates will be blindly supportive of whatever surveillance powers and lawbreaking immunity the President demands, but thus far, Obama and (less emphatically) Clinton have both claimed that they oppose such measures and thus pledged to support a Dodd-led filibuster.

Clinton and Obama have reiterated that opposition this week in response to Markos's inquiries. But the Senators need to do more than issue statements. They need to take a break from their campaigns and spend a few days actually on the job that they currently have--that means physically standing with Chris Dodd in support of his filibuster. You can urge them to do that with this page set up by Working Assets. Matt Browner-Hamlin has more on that campaign.

  Needless to say, you should  call and e-mail your Senators and tell them NO IMMUNITY for the telocom's.

Technorati Tags: FISA, the Senate, immunity, George Bush, Verizon, ATT

Barack Obama Against War In Iraq? His Senate Voting Record Says " No "

  All that we have heard from the Obama camp is that he has been against the war in Iraq from the beginning of that joke. While he may have opposed the war before he made it into the Senate, he has voted for the funding/continuation of the war since he made the Senate, just as Hillary Clinton has done.

  Both of these to presidential hopefuls talk about bringing our troops home from Iraq, but the timelines that they would actually do it in are rather fuzzy. Both of these candidates also know that there is no way that all of our soldiers are coming home. Bush didn't have the worlds largest embassy built in Iraq for a short term visit, and these two candidates know this.

  Both Obama and Clinton might want to think about telling the truth so far as their support for this war is concerned. We've already known Mrs. Clinton's stance and it is now time for Barack Obama to stop with the " no war support " bullshit.

  More on this subject can be found here.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Iraq war

The War In Iraq: The Numbers

   From The Gavel    January 9th, 2008 by Office of the Speaker

· The Iraq war has already been going on for almost five years – longer than U.S. participation in World War II, World War I, the Korean War, or the Civil War.

· 3,912 brave U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 – 901 over the past year, making it the worst year for American military in Iraq. [Department of Defense, 1/9/08; icasualties.org, 1/9/08]

· Nearly 29,000 soldiers have been wounded in Iraq since the war began – 12,918 suffering injuries so serious they were prevented them from returning to duty. [Department of Defense, 1/9/08]

· The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, under the President’s policies, the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade.

· The war increasingly strains our military – now creating the worst crisis in U.S. troop readiness and our ability to respond to new threats since Vietnam.

· “Nearly half of U.S. diplomats unwilling to volunteer to work in Iraq say one reason for their refusal is they don’t agree with Bush administration’s policies in the country.” [AP, 1/8/08]  

Technorati Tags: Iraq, war in Iraq, Department of Defense, U.S. troops, Nancy Pelosi

Fraudulent Elections: 20 Facts You Probably Didn't Know

  While making my usual round researching a topic for later use, I ran across an interesting post over at DailyKos that lists 20 facts about our corporations and their employees which make and run our voting machines.

   The author of the post ( jmsjoin ) says to place this post everywhere so I am doing my part right now.

 

  fraudulent elections: Bush doesn't understand what happened!  it's his underhanded standard!

by jmsjoin

Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 05:34:39 AM PST

     I happened upon 20 amazing facts about voting today that really bothers me and I can't believe it has been allowed to happen like everything else underhanded today, right under our "closed eyes"
     I was gathering information this morning and I was going to post on Pakistan after Bhutto. I decided to sit on the information a little longer as it was so felonious, convoluted, and nefarious. Instead, after hearing that Bhutto was killed the day she was going to hand US Diplomats proof that Musharraf was rigging the election which of course was denied, knowing to an impartial observer Russia just fraudulently elected Putin, and so far 250 killed as a result of Kenya's fraudulent elections, I decided to focus on fraudulent elections.

This is Democracy in the 21st century and Bush set the standard. I heard Rice say today that Kenya was the most stable country in East Africa and does not understand what happened. I do! Bush has set the underhanded standard here too. Get what you want anyway you have to, that is all that matters.

     He set the standard! "free and fair" election was not held in the United States on Nov. 3, 2004. Voting "irregularities" were widespread, and often concentrated in money-poor areas inhabited by people-of-color. People were illegally turned away from the polls, given misinformation about when/if they could vote, and found that their registrations had disappeared. Additionally, electronic voting machines that were easy-to-hack and had no ability to produce a paper trail were in use in more areas than ever before. Throw in corporate-owned candidates up and down the ticket that provided no meaningful choice, and Nov. 3 2004 really was a sElection.

     After the sElection, "third party" candidates attempted to call the powers-that-be on their scams by demanding recounts in several states, and activists worked hard to expose the issues of racist fraud, electronic voting machines, and the generally undemocratic workings of voting in the U.S. The problems of 2004 were already raising their ugly heads in 2002 and 2000.
     Knowing how fraudulent this "great right" of a true Democracy has routinely become that in itself should tell you about Democracy today but I happened upon 20 amazing facts about voting today that really bothers me and I can't believe it has been allowed to happen like everything else underhanded today, right under our "closed eyes"

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

1. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

1. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

1. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

1. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

1. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

1. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

1. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

1. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

1. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

1. Diebold is based in Ohio.

1. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

1. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

1. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

1. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

1. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie

1. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

1. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

1. The governor of the state of Florida was Jeb Bush the President's brother of course.

1. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

**It is a setup and it isn't funny! This is only one of the myriad ways of stealing an election today. pakistan is all screwed up and Bush doesn't understand what happened in Kenya or anywhere else. I'll tell you what happened Bush happened! He set the standard of underhanded, lying, deceitful leadership as the worlds leader and they are all learning well just one more sign of the future to come compliments of Bush! stolen elections

NOTE: Please copy the above list and distribute freely! LET THE FACTS BE KNOWN! Thank you!

James Joiner
Gardner Ma
http://www.anaveragepatriot.com/

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Diebold, election fraud, 2008 elections

The Patriot Act: Government Intrusion On Your Personal Rights

  In keeping with my previous posts on our rights we are losing under this so-called " Patriot Act ", I now present you with a few more details of what the Bush clan has done to you and myself.

  It seems that diarist  Markthshark over at DailyKos has been keeping up with this as well, but from a Bill of Rights point of view.

  I am post his timeline on the Bill of Rights destruction but you may wish to go and read the entire article here.

 

For what its worth, here it is:

January 2001

• President Bush signs off on a presidential directive that delays [indefinitely] the scheduled release of presidential documents authorized by the Presidential Records Act of 1978, pertaining to the Reagan-Bush administration. (Here)

• The Bush regime begins the process of radically broadening scope of documents and information which can be deemed classified. (Here)

February 2001

• The National Security Agency (NSA) sets up Project Groundbreaker, a monitoring program for domestic call infrastructure. (Here)

February -- April 2001

• A secret order issued by the Bush regime authorizes NSA monitoring of domestic phone and internet traffic. (Here)

September 2001

• In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, over one thousand suspects are brought into detention over the next several months when the Department of Justice authorizes detention without charge for any terror suspects. (Here PDF)

October 2001

• U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announces unprecedented shift in Department of Justice (DOJ) policy. According to the new policy DOJ will impose far more stringent criteria for the granting of Freedom of Information Act requests. (Here)

September – October 2001

• The NSA launches massive database of info on US phone calls. (Here)

October 2001

• The USA Patriot Act becomes law. Among other things, the law makes it a crime for anyone to contribute money or material support for any group on the State Department’s Terror Watch List; allows the FBI to monitor and tape conversations between attorneys and clients; permits the FBI to order librarians to turn over information about patron’s reading habits, and allows the government to conduct surveillance on internet and email use of US citizens without notice. The act also calls for expanded use of National Security Letters (NSLs), which allow the FBI to search telephone, email and financial records of US citizens without a court order, exempts the government from needing to reveal how evidence against suspected terrorists was obtained and authorizes indefinite detention of immigrants at the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities. (Here)

• A NJ Superior court judge and civil liberties scholar Anthony Napolitano, author of A Nation of Sheep, has described the law’s assault on first and fourth amendment principles as follows, "The Patriot Act’s two most principle constitutional errors are an assault on the Fourth Amendment, and on the First. It permits federal agents to write their own search warrants [under the name "national security letters"] with no judge having examined evidence and agreed that it’s likely that the person or thing the government wants to search will reveal evidence of a crime... Not only that, but the Patriot Act makes it a felony for the recipient of a self-written search warrant to reveal it to anyone. The Patriot Act allows [agents] to serve self-written search warrants on financial institutions, and the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004 in Orwellian language defines that to include in addition to banks, also delis, bodegas, restaurants, hotels, doctors’ offices, lawyers’ offices, telecoms, HMOs, hospitals, casinos, jewelry dealers, automobile dealers, boat dealers, and that great financial institution to which we all would repose our fortunes, the post office. (Here)

November 2001

• Bush issues Executive order 13233. It limits the release of presidential documents. The order gives incumbent presidents the right to veto requests to open any past presidential records and supersedes the congressionally passed law of 1978 mandating release of all presidential records not explicitly deemed classified. (Here)

January 2002

• The FBI and Department of Defense (DOD), forbidden by law from compiling databases on US citizens, begin contracting with private database firm ChoicePoint to collect, store, search and maintain data. (Here)

February -- March 2002

• Bush issues a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to wiretap the phones and read emails of US citizens. (Here)

March – April 2002

• The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) acknowledges it has created both a "No Fly" and a separate "Watch" list of US travelers. (Here)

May 2002

• The U.S. Department of Justice authorizes the FBI to monitor political and religious groups. The new rules permit the FBI to broadly search or monitor the internet for evidence of criminal activity without having any tips or leads that a specific criminal act has been committed. (Here)

June 2002

• The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the right of school administrators to conduct mandatory drug testing of students without probable cause. (Here)

November 2002

• The Homeland Security Act of 2002 establishes separate Department of Homeland Security. Among other things the department will federally coordinate for the first time all local and state law enforcement nationwide and run a Directorate of Information and Analysis with authority to compile comprehensive data on US citizens using public and commercial records including credit card, phone, bank, and travel. The department also will be exempt form Freedom of Information Act disclosure requirements. The Homeland Security department’s jurisdiction has been widely criticized for being nebulously defined and has extended beyond terrorism into areas including immigration, pornography and drug enforcement. (Here) and (Here)

February 2003

• Draft of Domestic Security Enhancement Act (aka Patriot Act 2), a secret document prepared by the Department of Justice is leaked by the Center for Public Integrity. Provisions of the February 7th draft version included:

    (a) Removal of court-ordered prohibitions against police agencies spying on domestic groups.

    (b) The FBI would be granted powers to conduct searches and surveillance based on intelligence gathered in foreign countries without first obtaining a court order.

    (c) Creation of a DNA database of suspected terrorists.

    (d) Prohibition of any public disclosure of the names of alleged terrorists including those who have been arrested.

    (e)Exemptions from civil liability for people and businesses who voluntarily turn private information over to the government.

    (f) Criminalization of the use of encryption to conceal incriminating communications.

    (g) Automatic denial of bail for persons accused of terrorism-related crimes, reversing the ordinary common law burden of proof principle. All alleged terrorists would be required to demonstrate why they should be released on bail rather than the government being required to demonstrate why they should be held.

    (h) Expansion of the list of crimes eligible for the death penalty.

    (i) The United States Environmental Protection Agency would be prevented from releasing "worst case scenario" information to the public about chemical plants.

    (j)United States citizens whom the government finds to be either members of, or providing material support to, terrorist groups could have their US citizenship revoked and be deported to foreign countries.

    (k) Although the bill itself has never (yet) been advanced in congress due to public exposure, some of its provisions have become law as parts of other bills. For example The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 grants the FBI unprecedented power to obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge. Under the law, the FBI does not need to seek a court order to access such records, nor does it need to prove just cause. (Here) and  (Here)

March 2003

• Bush issues Executive order 13292, which radically tightens the declassification process of classified government documents, as well as making it far easier for government agencies to make and keep information classified. The order delayed by three years the release of declassified government documents dating from 1978 or earlier. It also allowed the government to treat all material sent to American officials from foreign governments — no matter how routine — as subject to classification, and expanded the ability of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to shield documents from declassification. Finally it gave the vice president the power to classify information. (Here) and (Here)

• In a ruling seen as a victory for the concentration of ownership of intellectual property and an erosion of the public domain, the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft held that a 20-year extension of the copyright period (from 50 years after the death of the author to 70 years) called for by the Sonny Bono copyright Extension not violate either the Copyright Clause or the First Amendment. (Here)

April 2003

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Demore v. Kim that even permanent residents could be subject to mandatory detention when facing deportation based on a prior criminal conviction, without any right to an individualized hearing to determine whether they were dangerous or a flight risk. (Here)

September – October 2003

• The FBI changes its traditional policy of destroying all data and documents collected on innocent citizens in the course of criminal investigations. This information would, according to the bureau, now be permanently stored. Two years later in late 2005 Executive Order 13388, expanded access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined. (Here) and (Here)

October – November 2003

As authorized by the Patriot Act, the FBI expands the practice of national security letters. NSLs, originally introduced in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, enabled the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. This was extended by the Patriot Act to include permitting clandestine scrutiny of all U.S. residents and visitors whether suspected of terrorism or not. (Here)

January 2004

• The FBI begins keeping a database of US citizens based on information obtained via NSLs. (Here)

February – March 2004

• U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft invokes State Secrets privilege to forbid former FBI translator Sibel Edmunds from testifying in a case brought by families of victims of the 9-11 attacks. Litigation by 9-11 families is subsequently halted. (Here) and (Here)

June 2004

• The U.S. Supreme Court upholds Nevada state law allowing police to arrest suspects who refuse to provide identification based on police discretion of "reasonable suspicion." (Here)

January 2005

• The U.S. Supreme court rules that police do not need to have probable cause to have drug sniffing dogs examine cars stopped for routine traffic violations. (Here) and (Here)

June 2005

• U.S. Supreme Court rules that the federal government can prosecute medical marijuana users even in states which have laws permitting medical marijuana. (Here)

July – August 2005

• Due to expire at the end of 2005, The Patriot Act is reauthorized by Congress. (Here)

December 2005

• The U.S. Senate blocks reauthorization of certain clauses in Patriot Act. (Here)

March 2006

• The U.S. Senate passes amended version of Patriot Act, reauthorization, with three basic changes from the original including: recipients of secret court orders to turn over sensitive information on individuals linked to terrorism investigations are not allowed to disclose those orders but can challenge the gag order after a year, libraries would not be required to turn over information without the approval of a judge, recipients of an FBI "national security letter" — an investigator’s demand for access to personal or business information — would not have to tell the FBI if they consult a lawyer. New bill also said to extend Congressional oversight over executive department usage guidelines. Shortly after bill is signed George Bush declares oversight rules are not binding. (Here) and (Here)

June 2006

• Supreme court rules that evidence obtained in violation of the "knock and announce" rules can still be permitted in court. (Here)

September 2006

• US Congress and Senate approve the Military Commissions Act, which authorizes torture and strips non- US citizen detainees suspected of terrorist ties of the right of habeas corpus (which includes formal charges, counsel and hearings). It also empowers US presidents at their discretion to declare US citizens as enemy combatants and subject to detention without charge or due process. (Here) (Here) and (Here)

October 2006

• The U.S. Senate passes the John Warner Defense Authorization Act. The act allows a president to declare a public emergency and station US military troops anywhere in America as well as take control of state based national guard units without consent of the governor or other local authorities. The law authorizes presidential deployment of US troops to round-up and detain "potential terrorists", "illegal aliens" and "disorderly" citizenry. (Here) and (Here)

May 2007

• The White House issues National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51). It establishes a new post-disaster plan (with disaster defined as any incident, natural or man-made, resulting in extraordinary mass casualties, damage or disruption) which places the president in charge of all three branches of government. The directive overrides the National Emergencies Act which gives Congress power to determine the duration of a national emergency. (Here) and (Here)

June 2007

• In "Bong Hits for Jesus" case the Supreme court ruled that student free speech rights do not extend to promotion of drug use. (Here)

July 2007

• Bush issued Executive Order 13438: "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq, issued. The order asserts the government’s power to confiscate the property "of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." (Here)

October 2007

• The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act passes the House of Representatives 400 to 6 (to be voted on in the Senate early in 2008). The act proposes the establishment of a commission composed of members of the House and Senate, Homeland Security and others, to "examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States" and specifically the role of the internet in fostering and disseminating extremism. According to the bill the term `violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change, while the term ‘ideologically-based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs." (Here) (Here) and (Here)

That my friends is perhaps the most odious timeline ever. But, it leaves us with a choice. We can turn yet another blind eye to another egregious usurpation of power or we can stop the VRHTA dead in its tracks. Please click the link below to contact your senators. They'll probably be voting on this piece of crap as soon as vacation is over.

Tell them HELL NO!!! on the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act. It is unconstitutional. It is unamerican.

Technorati Tags: The Patriot Act, Bill of Rights, Congress, George Bush, Dick Cheney, House of Representatives, Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act, Supreme Court, individual liberties, NSL's, FBI

The Rights That You Have Lost Under The Patriot Act, Part II

  This post as well as the previous one only deals with our rights so far as our privacy is concerned. If you wish to know other rights of yours that you may no longer have, then please visit Cooperativeresearch.org.

  This comes by way of Cooperativeresearch.org and is listed in order by date.

Open-Content project managed by Paul, blackmax

January 2002: Study Finds Agents Have Sought Records From 220 Libraries

The Patriot Act permits federal agents to secretly obtain information from booksellers and librarians about customers’ and patrons’ reading, internet and book-buying habits, merely by alleging that the records are relevant to an anti-terrorism investigation. The act prohibits librarians and booksellers from revealing these requests, so they cannot be challenged in court (see October 2, 2001). [Newsday, 9/16/2002] A University of Illinois study now concludes that federal agents have sought records from about 220 libraries nationwide since September 2001. [Miami Herald, 9/1/2002] The Justice Department refuses to say how many times it has invoked this Patriot Act provision (see June 13, 2002). [Observer, 3/16/2003] But Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant says that people who borrow or buy books surrender their right of privacy. [San Francisco Chronicle, 3/10/2003] Some libraries and bookstores unhappy with the law begin to fight back in a number of ways. Some libraries have posted signs warning that the government may be monitoring their users’ reading habits. [Reuters, 3/11/2003] Thousands of libraries are destroying records so agents have nothing to seize. [New York Times, 4/7/2003] Many librarians polled say they would break the law and deny orders to disclose reading records. [San Francisco Chronicle, 3/10/2003]

June 13, 2002: Congresspeople Ask Ashcroft About Patriot Act

Several congresspeople submit a list of 50 questions to Attorney General Ashcroft, asking him how the Patriot Act is being implemented (see October 26, 2001). [New York Times, 7/14/2002] For instance, they ask, “How many times has the department requested records from libraries, bookstores and newspapers? How many roving wiretaps has the department requested?” Ashcroft refuses to answer many of the questions, even though he is legally required to do so. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/2002] Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D) fails to receive any response to dozens of letters he writes to Ashcroft, and other senators complain of a complete stonewall [Washington Post, 8/21/2002] In March 2003, senators continue to complain that Ashcroft still has not provided the oversight information about the Patriot Act that he is required to give by law. [ABC News, 3/12/2003]

January 12, 2003: Many Cities Pass Resolutions Criticizing Patriot Act

It is reported that 22 cities representing 3.5 million residents have passed resolutions criticizing the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts (see October 26, 2001). Another 70 cities have such resolutions in the works. [Associated Press, 1/12/2003] Many of the resolutions provide some legal justification for local authorities to resist cooperating in the federal war on terrorism when they deem civil liberties and Constitutional rights are being compromised. [New York Times, 12/23/2002]

         to be continued...

Technorati Tags: The Patriot Act, right to privacy, FISA, NSA, John Ashcroft, Homeland security