But unfortunately I don’t think any of the best and brightest here who have worked for DOJ can ever convince me we have been a country based on the Rule of Law for years. We no longer have Rule of Law, and I don’t think it will ever be back. We are a country of shadow executive orders and signing statements and right now Bush, Cheney, Addington, Fielding and Gillespie are enjoying that with both Democrats and Republicans backing them–no one is questioning them. Sure we are–but they don’t care.As long as Congress backs what Bush and Cheney are doing, they can’t be stopped.

Put in the most crude street langauge:

Money buys the House and Senate votes, and they are always for sale with very few outstanding exceptions.

Take a look at just one Telco’s law firms–and you can quickly see they are hiring some of the cream of the largest law firms in the country and spending hundreds of millions to do it:

Law Firms Suiting up for Verizon

From LHP @16:

EW

It does matter that they are just making shit up. It’s like the Emperoro’s New Clothes. If we all tie ourselves in knots about “what does this mean” “what new powers does he have now”–we are tacity agreeing that they can do this.

If we just say: NOOOPE, you are full if fertilzer and everybody knows it. It will stop. Folks have to stop treated the outrageous, the ridiculous, as sane.

We must change the paradigm. We must not give this foolishness one iota of respect or deference.

If LHP or anyone else can tell me how in the world we change that paradigm, I’m all ears.

Selise where’s that site that lets you know when or if and what Reid’s bringing to the floor.

The people have a right to have exactly one that does instead of this kabuki shell game where an office tells you that they aren’t going to tell you what or when they are bringing to the floor.

You pay their salaries and much more.

Sorry for mispelling “cede”.

The effort to grant telecoms amnesty for breaking the law is a travesty. Any representative who furthers the debasement of the rule of law or the US Constitution will be called to answer by the people of the United States. It is your sworn duty, sir, to uphold and protect the provisions in the Constitution. It is your duty to ensure that this country be based upon the rule of law.

It has been said that telecoms should not be held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities.

Yet this ignores that the telecoms employ the worlds’ most powerful corporate lawyers, who are in a battle against Constitutionally protected privacy laws and a small non-profit lawyer (EFF’s Cindy Cohn). Additionally, these lawyers were on board to guide the company through all legal matters, including when the Administration’s illegal requests were first made. Additionally, if the telecoms have done nothing wrong they have nothing to fear, right? Where have I heard that argument before? The legislation in question, the law which you seek to countermand, was put in place specifically for Telecoms faced with the prospect of being asked to enable illegal tapping by the US government.

It has been said “companies are ‘unable to defend themselves in court’ because the government has insisted that their activities be kept secret.” But this isn’t the case. As the SF Chronicle (and others) reported: “federal law allows such defendants to present secret evidence in private to the judge, a practice said has been carried out for decades without any leaks.”

Others claim that if the companies are sued, they will no longer comply with valid governmental requests for data. But this is also not true. The telecoms are statutorily obligated to comply with requests backed by warrants.

Any bill that lets phone companies off the hook must be filibustered. I adamantly oppose amnesty altogether. You must oppose letting phone companies off the hook through any compromise. And you must oppose any legislation that enables the executive branch to monitor communications of US persons without a proper warrant. This is fundamental. You, as the leader of the Senate, must exercise your sworn obligations to protect the US Constitution and act as a check to the overreaching executive branch. This is your duty.

Sir, we are either a country based on the rule of law, or we are not.

faxed to DC

Whitehouse’s vote for immunity twice as Selise points out is right at the heart of what scares me. It’s quintissential Democratic voting for whatever Bush wants. If even Whitehouse will do that, as much insight as he has into this DOJ and Cheney’s shell game of EOs and classification and declassification then so will any of them–Feingold always excepted, Chris Doo and a few others. I do not begin to have the way to explain why the hell they do it. I don’t know if the best psychiatrists on earth could.

From Klynn @211 on the last EW Pixie Dust thread:

One cannot give such an amazing speech which centers on presidential praxis and policy being constitutionally unsound and then undue your profound insight on the Constitution with a vote on retroactive immunity.

I would like to see Whitehouse and Feingold back Dodd. It would start a snowball and Reid would have his hands tied.

I can’t explain how/why Whitehouse does this–but your comment goes right to the cancer that is in the Democratic congress right now, and metastasizing exponentially.

Screw that refrain that “they don’t have the votes.” The Democrats don’t have the votes precisely because they are voting with the Republicans consistently. I can figure that much out.

Time wise–I don’t see a bill getting voted on in the Senate before the long holiday break., but that hardly matters. I see much speachifying on the floor and then a joint Conference Committee coming, and I don’t see how they get “debate” and amendments done today.

The web consensus from many good bloggers is that Reid is bring SSIC’s version with immunity to the floor whenever–probably all the more reason that Reid’s office doesn’t want to deliver you all the bad news because people would rather not talk about how they’re scewing you while they’re screwing you. Please keep in mind and carefully read S.2248 the current bill before floor amendments that will inevitably come soon–it’s other provisions are very close to the current PAA and there are enough loopholes and ‘pixie dust’ in it that are in the worst, most vague language possible that sede power to DOJ and DNI–the two awful Mikes right now.

I include Specter’s because I believe Arlen or someone will offer it up as a floor amendment or in Joint Conference Committee.

Congress Reforming Government Surveillance Authority

House passed the RESTORE Act (H.R. 3773)

Specter’s Substitution

S. 2048 Reported out of SSIC (Rockerfeller’s–Senate Judiciary stripped the immunity but not the other horrendous components of it)

There are a good number of patchwork possibilities actually as to what bill goes to the floor and what bill is considered in a conference committee. I appreciate the time and work of Selise/drational and others who are diligent in trying to follow the latest breaking Congressional actions and positions using websites and phone calls to Congressional offices. and I know that on the web this morning, many people are expecting the worst from Reid. Amendments of all kinds from both camps can follow.

I want to post links to the bills that might be considered, for people to see how many aspects of the SSIC or SJC version (with immunity stripped still are very mimetic of the PAA’s horrible provisions chiefly, as Scarecrow did a fine job in pointing out in the summary of the nebulous language that gives the utmost power and discretion not to any court, FISA or otherwise, but to DOJ and the DNI who right now are the two Mikes Mukasey and McConnell. I also want to put up copies of the PAA and read the current bill–much that is horrendous is preserved in it–immunity aside!!!!Additionally there are two other aspects that loom large to me:

See:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake……/#comments by Empty Wheel

Marcy’s exchange @ 23 with LHP @ 16 and the comments that followed on Secret Executive Orders and Cheney’s making Executive Orders his own Wyoming style means of ruling this country is to me an awfully crucial part of this equation–regardless of which bill gets signed into law and it takes up the impact of the secret EOs as do many of the people who comment on that thread.

From LHP @16:

EW

It does matter that they are just making shit up. It’s like the Emperoro’s New Clothes. If we all tie ourselves in knots about “what does this mean” “what new powers does he have now”–we are tacity agreeing that they can do this.

If we just say: NOOOPE, you are full if fertilzer and everybody knows it. It will stop. Folks have to stop treated the outrageous, the ridiculous, as sane.

We must change the paradigm. We must not give this foolishness one iota of respect or deference

From Marcy@23: LHP

Barring some legal recourse (and I’m waiting for your explanation of how we discredit this legally) then the first step to the Emperor’s New Clothes is to point out, such that everyone case see it, that the Emperor is naked.

That’s part of what I’m trying to do. A lot of very smart people are saying, “well, golly, that EO thing would be really scary if Bush were doing it indiscriminately.”

Ergo, I’m trying to show that he is.

1) The effect of secret EOs (or (Bush executive orders that got a workout on the EW thread last night.

2) For whatever it’s worth strategy wise, Bushco has the means via PAA to extend it for a year from Feb. 1. 2008–whatever the consequences of that would be.

I want to emphasize this once again. Please read S. 2248 because right now most of the provisions of PAA below are ensconsed right in the middle of it.

“Protect America Act” (S.1927) is an emergency overhaul of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the current bill is terrifically similar to its provisions to let DOJ and DNI not Congress or the Courts run the show.

Allows electronic surveillance of a foreign target without a FISA court warrant, even when the communication involves a U.S. national.

Grants the Attorney General the authority to issue year-long program warrants – without FISA court approval — for surveillance of people reasonably believed to be outside of the United States.

This means that now, American phone calls, emails and internet use with an individual outside the U.S. can be recorded and examined by the U.S. government without probable cause.

Inadequate “minimization procedures” in PAA do not protect U.S. citizens from invasion of privacy.

“Minimization procedures” are secret procedures established by the government to discard communications involving a U.S. citizen that were unintentionally collected.

NSA Director Mike McConnell claims “minimization procedures” will protect U.S. citizens. Yet, under the PAA, there is no legal requirement to destroy communications of U.S. citizens or in any way prevent them from being used or disseminated. Furthermore, there is little Congressional or court oversight of these procedures.

No protection from reverse-targeting in the PAA for U.S. citizens.

Under PAA, there is no independent oversight to ensure that the government is not claiming to monitor a foreign national with whom a U.S. citizen is in contact with, while actually monitoring the U.S. citizen without a warrant.

Under the PAA, communications service providers are required to cooperate with warrantless government requests.

The Attorney General or the Director of National Intelligence can issue year-long program orders to obtain “foreign intelligence information from or with the assistance of a communications service provider” that “concern” a person outside of the U.S.

Communication providers are required to cooperate with surveillance requests and acquire immunity from lawsuits.

The government is granted the ability to tap directly into telecommunications facilities.

The PAA does not address the liability of telecommunication companies who cooperated with President Bush’s illegal national surveillance program following September 11th, 2001. President Bush has asked that the subsequent bill establish immunity for these companies.

FISA court has little authority over surveillance procedures that are established by the Attorney General and director of national intelligence.

The government is not required to report to the court how many Americans are wiretapped or what is done with those communications.

The FISA court can only reject the procedures if they are “clearly erroneous.”

Weak oversight from Congress.

The Attorney General has to report to the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees of Congress twice a year but is not required to report on how many calls by U.S. citizens the program has incidentally picked up or how many U.S. citizens have become targets.

From Wired H/T Bmaz and from Bmaz:

Defines the act of reading and listening into American’s phone calls and internet communications when they are “reasonably believed” to be outside the country as not surveillance.

Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to “communication service providers,” to help with spying that “concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” The language doesn’t require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.

Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.

Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months last for a year after being authorized.

Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program — sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program — and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren’t considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are “clearly erroneous.”

Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.

Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.

So, as we discussed above, programs initiated within the effective period of the PAA continue on for a year. So the Bushies can basically run out the clock with their programs intact irrespective of the sunset of the PAA and reversion to the version of FISA in place as of August 5, 2007. So, for all those thinking there is some major victory in forcing the sunset of the PAA and corresponding reversion to FISA; you aren’t getting what you think you are.

just in time too!