[Peace-discuss] "What Democrats -- not the Bush administration, but Democrats -- have done today"

[C. G. Estabrook]

	WEDNESDAY JULY 9, 2008 14:11 EDT
	Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms,
	legalize warrantless eavesdropping (updated below)

The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon voted to put an end to the NSA spying 
scandal, as the Senate approved a bill -- approved last week by the House -- to 
immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and 
vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in 
favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate 
Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, 
while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it.

John McCain wasn't present for any of the votes, but shared Obama's support for 
the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who 
already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into 
law very shortly.

Prior to final approval, the Senate, in the morning, rejected three separate 
amendments which would have improved the bill but which, the White House 
threatened, would have prompted a veto. With those amendments defeated, the 
Senate then passed the same bill passed last week by the House, which means it 
is that bill, in unchanged form, that will be signed into law -- just as the 
Bush administration demanded.

The first amendment, from Sens. Dodd, Feingold and Leahy, would have stripped 
from the bill the provision immunizing the telecoms. That amendment failed by a 
vote of 32-66, with all Republicans and 17 Democrats against (the roll call vote 
is here). The next amendment was offered by Sen. Arlen Specter, which would have 
merely required a court to determine the constitutionality of the NSA spying 
program and grant telecom immunity only upon a finding of constitutionality. 
Specter's amendment failed, 37-61 (roll call vote is here). The third amendment 
to fail was one sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, merely requiring that the 
Senate wait until the Inspector General audits of the NSA program are complete 
before immunizing the telecoms. The Bingaman amendment failed by a vote of 42-56 
(roll call vote here). Both Obama and Clinton voted for all three failed amendments.

The Senators then voted for "cloture" on the underlying FISA bill -- the 
procedure that allows the Senate to overcome any filibusters -- and it passed by 
a vote of 72-26. Obama voted along with all Republicans for cloture. Hillary 
Clinton voted with 25 other Democrats against cloture (strangely, Clinton 
originally voted AYE on cloture, and then changed her vote to NAY; I'm trying to 
find out what explains that).

With cloture approved, the bill itself then proceeded to pass by a vote of 69-28 
(roll call vote here), thereby immunizing telecoms and legalizing warrantless 
eavesdropping. Again, while Obama voted with all Republicans to pass the bill, 
Sen. Clinton voted against it.

Obama's vote in favor of cloture, in particular, cemented the complete betrayal 
of the commitment he made back in October when seeking the Democratic 
nomination. Back then, Obama's spokesman -- in response to demands for a clear 
statement of Obama's views on the spying controversy after he had previously 
given a vague and noncommittal statement -- issued this emphatic vow:

	"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes 
retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

But the bill today does include retroactive immunity for telecommunications 
companies. Nonetheless, Obama voted for cloture on the bill -- the exact 
opposition of supporting a filibuster -- and then voted for the bill itself. A 
more complete abandonment of an unambiguous campaign promise is difficult of 
imagine. I wrote extensively about Obama's support for the FISA bill, and what 
it means, earlier today.

With their vote today, the Democratic-led Congress has covered-up years of 
deliberate surveillance crimes by the Bush administration and the telecom 
industry, and has dramatically advanced a full-scale attack on the rule of law 
in this country. As I noted earlier today, Law Professor and Fourth Amendment 
expert Jonathan Turley was on MSNBC's Countdown with Rachel Maddow last night 
and gave as succinct an explanation for what Democrats -- not the Bush 
administration, but Democrats -- have done today. Anyone with any lingering 
doubts about what is taking place today in our country should watch this:

	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmot0aZy4MM&eurl

What is most striking is that when the Congress was controlled by the GOP -- 
when the Senate was run by Bill Frist and the House by Denny Hastert -- the Bush 
administration attempted to have a bill passed very similar to the one that just 
passed today. But they were unable to do so. The administration had to wait 
until Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over Congress before being 
able to put a corrupt end to the scandal that began when, in December of 2005, 
the New York Times revealed that the President had been breaking the law for 
years by spying on Americans without the warrants required by law.

Yet again, the Democratic Congress ignored the views of their own supporters in 
order to comply with the orders and wishes of the Bush administration. It is 
therefore hardly a surprise that, yesterday, Rasmussen Reports revealed this 
rather humiliating finding:

	Congressional Approval Falls to Single Digits for First Time Ever

	The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen 
to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This 
month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) 
say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious 
category.

The Congress, with a powerful cast of bipartisan lobbyists and the establishment 
media class lined up behind telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping, 
looked poised to pass this bill back last December, but a large-scale protest 
was organized -- largely online -- by huge numbers of American who were opposed 
to warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity, and that protest disrupted 
that plan (the movement borne of opposition to this bill is only beginning 
today, not ending, here). Today, Sen. Chris Dodd, the leader of the opposition 
effort along with Russ Feingold, said this on the Senate floor:

	"Lastly, I want to thank the thousands who joined with us in this fight around 
the country -- those who took to the blogs, gathered signatures for online 
petitions and created a movement behind this issue. Men and women, young and 
old, who stood up, spoke out and gave us the strength to carry on this fight. 
Not one of them had to be involved, but each choose to become involved for one 
reason and one reason alone: Because they love their country. They remind us 
that the "silent encroachments of those in power" Madison spoke of can, in fact, 
be heard, if only we listen."

Today, the Democratic-led Senate ignored those protests, acted to protect the 
single most flagrant act of Bush lawbreaking of the last seven years, 
eviscerated the core Fourth Amendment prohibition of surveillance without 
warrants, gave an extraordinary and extraordinarily corrupt gift to an extremely 
powerful corporate lobby, and cemented the proposition that the rule of law does 
not apply to the Washington Establishment.

	[...]

UPDATE: The ACLU announced today that it will challenge this bill in court as 
soon as it is passed on the ground that its warrantless eavesdropping provisions 
violate the Fourth Amendment:

	In advance of the president's signature, the ACLU announced its plan to 
challenge the new law in court.

	"This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President 
Bush signs it into law," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National 
Security Project. "The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of 
Americans' international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates 
the Fourth Amendment."

EFF, the other non-profit organization behind the telecom lawsuits, announced 
the same, emphasizing the unconstitutionality of the grant of immunity, likely 
on the ground that by resolving these pending lawsuits in favor of the telecoms, 
Congress as usurped the judicial function which the Constitution, in Article 
III, assigns to the courts, not to Congress or the President ("The judicial 
Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such 
inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish")...

-- Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/09/fisa_vote/index.htmll