Christy!

I have to be polite, no? *g*

Thanks for the post, I’m on it :)

Will do.

Done

OK

I’ll fax em

Fax time.

Done

There’s a small update above, gang — thanks so much for making contact!

just called the speaker’s DC office and asked that a copy of the draft legislation be posted online so that we could evaluate it and give our inputs to our representatives.

i was told that to make such a request i have to fax it (or mail it) to them. presumably so that they can file it in the circular file.

so much for transparent government.

but if we all request a copy it will be harder to ignore. so, i have a request… when you-all call or fax, would you ask for a copy of the legislation that is being proposed?

thanks.

Faxing. This is what I’ve been worried about.

Christy,

I’ve copied your contact info both over at Glenn’s place as well as in Emptywheel’s current post.

And like you indicated in the update, I made this comment to EW:

Could be another one of Steny/Rahm’s “trial balloons” just like last week, but hitting the phones is still likely to be worth it!

1,779 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Firepup Freedom Fighters:

I called and got right through, when I identified myself and told ‘im what I was callin’ about I got dumped into voice mail and I left a message, forceful but respectful that there were millions of us Democrats out here who are mobilzed out here and we vote and we stay after it so if she wants to be speaker in the NEXT Congress she’d better listen to the majority of the acticists in the base of her party. I also told her that this was an opportunity to make up for the cover she has given for the last two years to the criminal wrong-doin’ in the White House.

Anybody else have a different experience?

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, TIME TA TURN UP THE HEAT!!!

The

I’ve faxed multiple times. I stated that immunity is unacceptable and the 4th Amendment is non-negotiable. I then faxed again as per above and requested the text of the draft FISA capitulation bill be posted on the web so we could see what they are trying to do to us.

?

Seems like a saw a report from the Director of the FBI the other day, that said for the fourth straight year, FBI agents have been listening in (illegally) on U.S. citizen’s phone calls. When I was in high school, me and my friends wanted to be G-Men. We really looked up to these guys. Also, back then, to be on the SCOTUS was considered to be the most prestigious job in America. What happened? We need desperately to get back on track. McCain will not be of help in this endeavor.

My experience as well, Norske

Speaking of text, when I fax them I have included text from the 4th Amendment. Seems pretty clearcut to me: must have a warrant.

and requested the text of the draft FISA capitulation bill be posted on the web so we could see what they are trying to do to us.

thank you!

Norske, nope, same here. Pelosi’s staff clicked off immediately when I mentioned FISA and I was talking to a machine. Reyes’ staff listened politely and said he’d pass my concerns on.

apologies for the off topic–

news alert—

canadian ndp leader jack layton, mentioned in ian’s post last thread about the nafta memo, is going to be on ed schultz show soon about the nafta memo thing…shultz keeps dragging it out, said in a minute, but he isn’t on yet…..(i quit listening to ed shultz, in fact, i detest him, but was desperate for news today, i don’t have cable……….)

Has anybody posted this over at the orange overlord’s place?

re: less than supportive responses from pelosi’s and reyes’ staff - this does not sound like the offices of people who are not planning to capitulate. more like the offices of people who are thinking, “damn, how did they find out about this before the 5pm friday news dump and before we-all had left for the weekend?”

Sorry - unclear. I haven’t been paying much attention to the primary scuffling and who said what about whom, because this is where Bush gets himself off the hook. He doesn’t care about the telecoms. He cares about avoiding culpability for his crimes and this is his way out.

2 Faxes Completed. Voila.

LOL I go the same feeling when i called.

Hence the call to FAX and call. The more folks say “howdy, we are watching” the more I hope this doesn’t come to pass. Jeebus, I’m tired today…and this isn’t helping.

one thing i still don’t understand about all of this–how can they give immunity for something when they don’t even know what all they did?????

i truly don’t get it.

i keep seeing the three monkeys-see no evil hear no evil speak no evil………

off to make more calls.

see y’all later.

OT - In case you aren’t blogging hereabouts this evening, you might want to partake of some PBS shows:

Now - The use of torture by the U.S. is duscussed with filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side” explores the topic.

Bill Moyer’s Journal - A report on GOP presidential candidate John McCain and his endorsement from John Hagee, controversial evangelist and leader of the Christians United for Israel.

Sorta like, don’t them DFH’s have more important things to do?

bmaz’s theory is sounding more plausible every day, no?

(and now somebody’s gonna ask for a link, so I’ll start looking)

So, are they moving overseas to avoid lawsuits? Tip of the iceberg…

“The admission comes amidst US email and Internet companies moving some of their servers overseas. According to a piece in March’s edition of Harper’s Magazine, AT&T, Microsoft and Google all have or plan overseas data centers in an effort by the companies to cut costs.

“Microsoft has announced plans for a data center in Siberia, AT&T has built two in Shanghai, and Dublin has attracted Google and Microsoft,” Harper’s notes.

Americans’ personal data isn’t just email. More and more computer users are storing personal word processing, photographs and other files online through document sharing programs like Google Documents.

“As the functions long performed by personal computers come to be executed by these far-flung data centers,” the magazine writes, “the technology industry has rapturously rebranded the Internet as ‘the cloud.’”

Some say Wainstein’s admission that the debate over the eavesdropping act is centered not on “wire and radio” transmissions — eg, phone calls — suggests that most of the National Security Agency’s concern is about their ability to spy on Internet data.

Director of National Intelligence “Michael McConnell, the serial exaggerator who claims to be a non-political straight shooter, himself kept saying the NSA lost 70 percent of its capabilities after the ruling,” Wired blogger Ryan Singer writes. “If that’s the case, that means that 70 percent of what the NSA does is collect emails inside United States telecom infrastructure and service providers.”

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/....._0307.html

They are simply contemptuous of the citizens, they could really care less what we think- they are going to do what they want to do and that’s the end of it. After Pelosi’s people switched me to the voice mail I was so mad I had trouble being civil, I had to keep it short. It was a good thing I didn’t tell them what was really on my mind!

Democracy my dying butt…

faxes are going thru fine.

Thanks for that — good idea!

If the House does pass a bill similar to this trial balloon, then we get to have another round in the Senate. If that happens, we need to hit Reid very, very hard to force him to take the position that the Republicans would have to carry out an actual filibuster against a base bill that does not have retroactive immunity. Let’s see if Kitty Bond will even go as far as Dodd did.

I’ll have to make my calls Monday. My voice is shot from the remnants of a cold and I don’t have long distance service on my landline to send a fax.

i just called and the woman who answered couldn’t tell me my congressperson’s position on telecom immunity, but they asked what i’d like to convey to the congressman(lloyd doggett). i said, “no retroactive telecom immunity under any circumstances for the fisa bill” and they asked if i wanted to convey anything else. she very polite and also not giving any info.

Remember Clusterfuck tellin us that we aren’t gonna have a recession? Gues he didn’t speak to his economic advisor before makin that comment:

Economic growth unlikely this quarter

Bush Aide: Economic Growth May Be Negative This Quarter

Staff
AP News

Mar 07, 2008 12:59 EST

President Bush’s top economic adviser said Friday the nation’s economic growth could dip into negative territory for the current quarter, an assessment that tracks with many outside experts but is the most pessimistic to come so far from the White House.

“We don’t really know whether it will be negative or not,” Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters at the White House. “We have definitely downgraded our forecast for this quarter.”

He would not discuss whether the White House is predicting the economy will actually fall into a recession. Some economists think it already has.

“I’m still not saying that there’s a recession,” Lazear said. “We are going to have a weak growth quarter, and whether you call that a recession or not is something that we won’t know for many months.”

man, what part of this do the democrats have trouble with?;

we do NOT want the president or his administration allowed to look at our stuff UNLESS there is someone BESIDES MEMBERS OF THE ADMINISTRATION to say he has some kind of national security concern

GET IT?

no one else to look besides the adminsitration THEN FAGETABOUTIT

simple simple stuff

NOW HONOR YOUR OATH, PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION

and we will all be very very happy

Well, big surprise here-Lamar Smith thinks the Pretzeldent needs all the tools he requests to keep the “Homeland safe from from those who would do us harm”.

The more folks say “howdy, we are watching” the more I hope this doesn’t come to pass.

amen, christy. thanks for putting out the call!

If that happens, we need to hit Reid very, very hard to force him to take the position that the Republicans would have to carry out an actual filibuster against a base bill that does not have retroactive immunity.

exactly. no UCs.

* It provides for an audit by the DOJ’s Inspector General of the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” (the only change that I would describe as something other than worthless);

To me, an IG from DOJ is worthless until January 21, 2009 (at least).

You can ‘tap’ a discrete ‘wire’ or ‘radio’ signal; everything else requires collection followed by separation (think like ‘the old days’, when America was free); modern technologies are ‘multiplexed’.

I met him at the capitol when he was briefly my rep when tom delay was making the house safe from dems - aka redistricting. I introduced myself and started a conversation with him and had to stop the conversation when I realized i was speaking with a talking point recording.

Well Pelosi’s office dumped my call into the voicemail box - natch. Left a polite message …

At Reyes’ office, a chap named Andrew actually talked with me, suggested that I contact the Intelligence Committee (at 202-225-7690) and directed me to the website, ‘Democracy for America’ where Reyes has apparently posted a letter stating his position.

Andrew said the phone is ringing off the hook. Good on everyone!!

Ack! My formatting disappeared on that response. Is this my first problem after finally switching to Firefox?

“Quantico Circuit”, a data minig faucet with NO LOGS and NO FIREWALL, is a help yourself to what you want Karl Rove political channel to RNC and big corporations. This was worth billions in influence, campaign contributions and priveledge.

Nice for the Libby defense attorney team.

Nice for chummy crony bidding contractors on juicy government contracts that can just get under the competition.

Nice for prosecution and control of the Department of Justice.

Nice for dictatorial control of the whole government department apparatus.

Wouldn’t some government professionals have to wonder how the Political office of the WHITE HOUSE knew what was occurring in their operations if it was information not exposed to political moles appointed as department heads.

This is part of BUSHCO spy operation on the non political government. At every level of regulatory industry had the keys to the vault. Logically where there is smoke there is fire. So where motivation exists there is influence and data mining especially if things were not going Bush’s buddies way (where to look).

This is an influence driven policy machine from environmental (energy, timber sales, water, wastewater and infrastucture) to USDA (food) All the major regs from FCC, FEC, EPA, Bureau of Mines and BLM, Just look at the federal register and you will see what occurred…grants for programs dropped,rules for banking and S&Ls ignored. The Fleecing of America think of how many trillions investor were skinned for, is a history of crimes against the American people. Look at all the recalled poisoned food under Bush’s laissez faire policy. Deaths from no or little medical treatment by Insurers, HWOs and nursing homes.

This is a key piece of sluething by you Marcy. The source of power is information. I believe at so many levels the opportunity presented themselves to Bush/Cheney/Rove to take advantage of their fiduciary duties that they were proactive in this as evidenced by the elections in 2000, 20004, 2006 and 2008 to use it against Dem candidates or office holders who were challenged by their horses. Alabama Gov Siegelman for one.

This is the tip of the iceburg of crimes which needs the Constitutional power of Impeachment investigation to get to the bottom and create safeguards. Expose this and the Republican party is toast for decades.

Theft in the name of National Security is still theft. Executive priveledge and War on Terror forever does not reverse the constitutional protection of the citizens against the abuse of power by the government. Without these constitutional protection we are living in Corporate Oligarchy, a form of tyranny so insidious as to make us all life long slaves to the corporation and President who serves only the stockholders by fiat, a decree of Bushco.

Big oil has robbed us blind since the vertical trusts of Standard Oil. Big oil has used our military might to gain control of foriegn assets. Big oil as the energy source for global economy has taken the White House from the people. Both Cheney and Bush are Oil whores see the Molly Ivins and Marcy Wheeler writings on that and the Baker Botts oil connections in Houston with the Enron ripoff of California for $35 Billion dollars.

We have to stop them with a new energy policy…get of off big oil…get on sustainable energy wind and solar.

No Immunity! Imagine this:

Imagine all the corporation lobbyist, “K” Street, knocking on the doors of elected official with billions in hand for massive campaign funds at all levels in return for pork deals, which they got like never before over 7,000 2000 to 2006.

That made corporations oh so profitable, imagine the opportunities for insider trading when the lobbyists got the high sign that their legislation was approved bt the republican causus under Delay and company.

Information becomes Gold in this corporate culture and government environmant. Government is THE cash cow…your national treasury was is the target. Fort Knox was nothing compared to a permanent free ride from taxes. Jesus Fing Christ…we have been robbed about a trillion tome bigger than the Great Train Robbery. Families have to work three and four jobs to make ends meet.

Without datamining this could not have been accomplished. It is about stealing not spying.

They were never protecting our National Security they were robbing us and leaving us at risk and we were the fall guy in the con. Where is Redford/Newman when we we need them (Sting).

Here’s what I intend to fax; it’s a little lengthy, but it fits on one page! Hope it’ll do:

Dear Congressperson:

When the Congress of the United States is willing to cede oversight responsibilities of the Intelligence Community to the Executive Branch, I have every right and reason to be concerned. When the Senate surrenders the Constitutional powers of the Federal Courts to the Executive Branch as well, I should be and I am outraged. We are traveling down a road to tyranny farther than we’ve ever gone during my lifetime. Ben Franklin said, “We have given you a democratic Republic, if you can keep it.” It has been left to every generation to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which our forefathers put their blood, sweat and tears into, ever since. But when you, as my representative, stand with those who violate the Constitution against the interests of your constituents, you are standing with the terrorists. You are undermining judicial discretion; you are sabotaging the separation of powers, you are obstructing the rule of law, and you are caving in to a would-be dictator.

If we surrender our rights to communicate without the government becoming a third party to every single conversation, business meeting, whatever communications that we have with our fellow citizens, without probable cause and warrants, we will become as totalitarian a society as those we presume to accuse of tyranny. And if we surrender just this part of Amendments One and Four of the Bill of Rights this time, who will stop the process when we’re asked to surrender our guns (Amendment Two) or our freedom of assembly or when we’re told that we can no longer afford to support “due process” before imprisonment or the prisoner’s right not to testify against himself (Amendment Five) “for some citizens.” Pretty soon the entire Bill of Rights is up for grabs, literally, by the head of state/government.

I want to see who is ready to stand up for the rule of law? Who is willing to say no to a President who demands retroactive immunity for telecom companies that conspired with agencies of the Administration to infringe the rights of the citizen? Who is willing to require the telecoms to do what every other citizen must do: tell their story to the judge in a duly authorized court? Or they may be imposed upon to talk to a grand jury whose job it is to sort out whether laws were broken. Maybe a prosecutor would offer them immunity if they allocute as to exactly why they chose to collude with the administration to surrender the private information of their customers without permission and why they thought it was legally permissible to do so. All of this is under the purview of the Judicial Branch of our federal government, it is not up to the Legislative Branch anymore, and certainly is not up the Executive Branch that was a party to the alleged wrongdoing. We look to men of vision to defend against not just the physical fear of terrorism, but also the danger that ripples out into our society if we start to surrender our rights to an overly zealous and power happy administration.

You may say that we’re at war and it is your responsibility to rubber stamp the President in whatever manner is necessary “to protect the citizens against the terrorists.” But I would remind you that President Ronald Reagan ultimately signed legislation to apologize for the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII because the government’s actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”. That’s because the legislation that caused that internment was illegal and unconstitutional, as is warrantless wiretapping. Do you want to be a failed political leader due to war hysteria? No? Then please vote no on retroactive immunity for telecoms and please make sure that any legislation that you pass includes adequate minimulization provisions. Thank you.

< You can find phone and FAX numbers here. >
Of course, here in the Illinois 14th Cong. Dist., we are without representation due to the conspiratorial retirement of Speaker Hastert. So no congressperson to fax to. Well, maybe tomorrow’s special election in the 14th will bring good news. If so, I think we’ll need to work on Foster to get progressive, Constitution-protecting representation from him. A lot of DCCC Rahm $$$ going into this election.

Outstanding letter.

*Clapping and hooting loudly.

beautiful letter, Ann

Ann, that is simply brilliant! I second JimWhite’s reaction…

Ah, the joys of working from home and being able to make non-work-related phone calls without attracting umbrage. Called Stephanie Miller this morning (”mercury poisoning as an STD”), and called my congresspeople just now to tell them no compromises on FISA or telecomm immunity.

Here is what Steve Kagen wrote to me last week. I’m pasting this into my letter to him to make sure he remembers what he said.

I have consistently voted against any FISA law which makes it possible to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens without a warrant and without adequate judicial oversight. I also believe that we should not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies unless it is specifically shown what actions these companies undertook at the request of the Bush Administration.

Good letter Ann! Send it to your local paper!

But wouldn’t suing the mega-powerful telecom corporations sink the already sinking economy?

I kept at my senator (Debbie the cow Stabenow) and she just blew me off.

My Rep is Dave Camp. I have about as much of a chance of getting him to deny telecom immunity as I have of turning into Steve Jobs.

On an aside, anyone else catch the House hearing on the pay of sub-prime vultures? You didn’t even need to wait for the caption identifying the talking head’s political affiliation. The ones with puckered lips were republicans. I was embarrassed. They should have all gotten a room, ala Caligula…

If I lived in California, I’d be so embarrassed of Dan Issa…

Good Germans…

HUNTER S. THOMPSON: We used to ridicule it, the good Germans who just went along with it because that’s what the Fuehrer wanted.

MARY SUMA: You’ve said the president has destroyed the country, the economy and our relationship with the rest of the world.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON: Well, I believe that’s true and even the countries that allegedly go along or support us, our allies going into this war, popular opinion in most of those countries, I can’t say this for sure, but in England, certainly, the English people, as a whole, are strongly opposed to the war and to going along with whatever George Bush says. Democracy is on its last legs in this country, and freedom, you know, the Free World?

MARY SUMA: Mm-hmm.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON: We’re defending freedom? We’ll fight to the death for freedom? That’s absurd. This country is no more a capital or bastion of freedom now than Nazi Germany was in the 1940s. This country is a rogue nation in a way, but worse than a rogue nation. We’re a war-crazy, war-dependent, really, nation and that leads right to the oil industry. It is ridiculous. And particularly in the media; with the media I noticed. To not discuss the connection between oil and bombs in Iraq is disgraceful. Winston Churchill said, “In times of war, the first casualty is always the truth.” Truth is the first casualty of any war.

MARY SUMA: In lieu of fear.

From Democracy Now.

Reyes office staff person told me this is NOT coming up, no decisions have been made on FISA. I called my critter, and Pelosi anyway, but why can’t we get a full honest scoop of where in process this is???? Cause they’re hiding? Being secretive?
DON’T MAKE ME COME OUT THERE and straighten things out!!!
*frustration!*

The plan of the House leadership is to pass this specific bill in the House, send it to the Senate (where telecom immunity will be added in by the same bipartisan Senate faction that already voted for immunity)

I have a small question; Couldn’t Dodd filibuster it at that juncture…?

Yes, and he already has said that he will. That has been reported back by callers to his office on the Glenn Greenwald comments, including a comment by pow wow that is worth reading. See page 5 of the comments.

Thanks for info on pow wow’s comment. A clear, ‘non-technical’ description, well worth the read, absolutely, Jim.

My letter. Hope it’s not too ‘impolite’.

RE: Telecom immunity and being a ‘good German’.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON: We used to ridicule it, the good Germans who just went along with it because that’s what the Fuehrer wanted.
MARY SUMA: You’ve said the president has destroyed the country, the economy and our relationship with the rest of the world.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON: … Democracy is on its last legs in this country, and freedom, you know, the Free World?
MARY SUMA: Mm-hmm.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON: … This country is no more a capital or bastion of freedom now than Nazi Germany was in the 1940s. This country is a rogue nation in a way, but worse than a rogue nation. We’re a war-crazy, war-dependent … nation… It is ridiculous. … Winston Churchill said, “In times of war, the first casualty is always the truth.” Truth is the first casualty of any war.
MARY SUMA: In lieu of fear.
(From Democracy Now)

The founding documents of this country have stood the test of time. They have lasted over 200 years! They have been tested and rectified in the past. The Church Commission springs to mind.

Why be a good German and give George Bush the tools of further harassment? Do you not remember what led to the creation of the Church Commission? Have you forgotten the abuses of the past? Is George W. Bush so powerful that you fear standing up to him and his outrageous attacks on the foundation of this country?

Who is the bigger traitor to the constitution and the foundation of this country, George W. Bush for concocting these crimes or Congress for ignoring their fiduciary duty and going along with them?

I urge you to stand up and deny the criminals their cover. No one, especially the President of the United States can compel any corporation to commit crimes and then no Congress, that represents the people (We the people…) should assist that president in absolving the crimes! NO CONGRESS! AT NO TIME!

Otherwise then the ‘rule of law’ is truly dead in America, just as it was in Haiti and Zimbabwe and Germany and so many despotic dictatorships throughout time.

How much must we give away? How much must we absolve? How many of our rights and our laws must we sacrifice for George W. Bush and his regime? How much of our freedom and democracy must we forfeit for the protection of those that do the dirty work of George W. Bush?
How long must we wait for someone to standup for freedom and democracy here in America? How long until George W. Bush is stopped.

Woo-Hoo! Pow wow Rawks…! *g*

P.S. Chris Dodd has promised to continue his opposition to a flawed ‘conference committee’ product. Note that his ability to block such a product dramatically improves shortly before a Congressional recess, which will be the case next week (it’s the last week of work before Congress takes at least a couple of weeks off). He may not have to filibuster next week (but instead simply object to Unanimous Consent requests) to successfully push any final action and seriously-taxing filibuster off until after the upcoming recess.

Quite po-lite and suggesting a circumspect (meaning ‘watchful’) perspective on your part. Should this be deemed ‘overmuch’ by those who would represent our collective interests, then, perhaps they should seek other ‘employment’. You have merely reminded them, gently yet firmly, just what their ‘job’ in fact, actually entails. It is not all adulation and greasing the skids for an even cushier sinecure as a lobbyist. Some of them seem a tad bit dense, these days. You’ve actually been very kind, considering what they will deserve should they, once again, fail to honor and protect the Constitution and, thereby fail to faithfully serve true needs of the people of this nation.

Good on you.

Thank you for a wonderful letter. I was inspired and will write one myself.

With your permission I’d like to forward it to my local paper (Louisville Courier Journal) and ask if they would publish it, not as letter to editor per se due to length, but maybe as commentary. Would that suit you? If so I am guessing they would want your name and city in AZ, but I don’t know how that kind of info gets passed.

Just checked back and saw your comment. I don’t mind anyone forwarding it to anywhere, but you can go to my facebook page contact me about my name and the city is Glendale, AZ. Most papers also want phone numbers and e-mail addresses which I don’t think is advisable to publish here. In facebook, there are ways of contacting one another to exchange that sort of information. I just published the letter under the heading “Open Letter to Congress” here, so you can take my blog name, remove the word “blog” and add at (the sign, not the word)cox dot net for my email.

Wow, it’s amazing that over at TPM a whole different version of the house FISA effort appears and it has no immunity provision,a two year sunset and exclusivity. Go check it out ey?

That was perfect. If you don’t mind, I am going to copy and fax.