Where is clinton on this? She avoided previous votes on this.

The bush-dog dems are just as responsible for the crimes of this administration as dur chimpfurher they enable and protect.

"Which raises a question: what will Barack Obama do? He's been consistently opposed to telecom immunity in the past, so presumably he'll vote against it. But will he just cast a no vote and then bemoan the bill's eventual passage, or will he expend some real political capital to try to keep it from passing?"

I take Door #2. Anyone wanna bet a Coke on it? Maybe a Coke with an extra sprinkling of audacity?

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

p.s.: To help fight the probably-futile-but-maybe-just-maybe-not-futile fight against Steny Hoyer's giveaway to the powerful telecoms, go drop some bucks here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa

Already $40K has been donated in just this one day. I dropped one-fitty myself. Let's join the battle and at least be able to friggin' look ourselves in the mirror and say we tried after the rule of law finally disappears from sight.

"Which raises a question: what will Barack Obama do? He's been consistently opposed to telecom immunity in the past, so presumably he'll vote against it. But will he just cast a no vote and then bemoan the bill's eventual passage, or will he expend some real political capital to try to keep it from passing?"

I take Door #2. Anyone wanna bet a Coke on it? Maybe a Coke with an extra sprinkling of audacity?

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

p.s.: To help fight the probably-futile-but-maybe-just-maybe-not-futile fight against Steny Hoyer's giveaway to the powerful telecoms, go drop some bucks here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa

Already $40K has been donated in just this one day. I dropped one-fitty myself. Let's join the battle and at least be able to friggin' look ourselves in the mirror and say we tried after the rule of law finally disappears from sight.

Yep! let's continue to enable the criminals. Yay!!
Its worked out really well so far.

The http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa page says that $120,000 has been raised to attack Steny Hoyer. Is that all from today or is it cumulative and have they "only" raised $40,000 since this morning?

I chipped in too. Aside from Republicans, Hoyer is the worst sort of scum, a corporate Dem in a safe seat. Things aren't great in Congress, but they would be so much worse if he had been elected Speaker.

One thing you can do is state your opinion at the Obama website, which I did. And you can donate money to the act blue fisa site, which I did.

When the time comes, Stoney and Jello Jay need primary challenges.

Let us never forget their treachery.

I tried to donate but it's restricted to American residents, citizens.

Note that Sweden is in the throes of a similar debate

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/17/swedes-take-to-the-s.html

and there's a parliamentary vote tomorrow.

"This Wednesday at 9am the Swedish Parliament is voting on a new wiretapping law which would enable the civil agency (FRA — Defense Radio Agency) to snoop on all traffic crossing the Swedish border. E-mail, fax, telephone, web, SMS, etc. 24/7 without any requirement to obtain a court order. Furthermore, by law, the sitting Government will be able to instruct the wiretapping agency on what to look for. It also nullifies anonymity for press tipsters and whistleblowers. Many agencies within Sweden have weighed in on this, with very hefty criticism, e.g. SÄPO (akin to FBI in the US), the Justice Department, ex-employees of FRA, and more. Nonetheless, the ruling party block is supposedly pressuring its members to vote 'yes' to this new proposed law with threats to unseat any dissidents. After massive activity on blogs by ordinary citizens, and street protests, the story has finally been picked up by major Swedish news sources. The result will likely be huge street protests on Wednesday. People have been completely surprised since this law has not gotten any media uptake unitl very late in the game. "

This is one of the few times the administration has been frank about why it wants something. They want telecomm immunity so the next time they ask the telecomms to do something illegal, they'll say yes again.

"The http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa page says that $120,000 has been raised to attack Steny Hoyer. Is that all from today or is it cumulative and have they "only" raised $40,000 since this morning?"

As best I understand it, ~$80K of that $120K represents older funds raised over the past couple months to target Chris Carney (D-PA) in his home district for his longstanding support of retroactive immunity for law-breaking telecoms. The balance (~$40,000 so far, and climbing) is today's tally to spend in the district of Steny Hoyer (D-MA) [Hoyer appears to be the prime Democratic mover steering this current deal].

Here's why it's worked out that way, as I understand it:
A broad-based, poly-ideological coalition is urgently coalescing, as we speak, to fight the current Hoyer FISA deal, as presently understood. Glenn Greenwald has been waiting patiently for the past day or so for that coalition to solidify and establish its own fundraising apparatus with which to fight Hoyer's FISA betrayal. But it's taking a while for that coalition to get up and running (the news of the breakthrough on this rapidly-impending FISA deal only leaked a couple days ago, remember). Meanwhile, precious daylight is burning, and the deal is rumored to be announced (and rammed through) literally any day. So, basically, it looks like Glenn Greenwald finally got antsy, re-jiggered the old anti-Carney fundraising website into an anti-Hoyer fundraising one, and steered his FISA-related traffic there in order to get a head start on fundraising and establish a bedrock donation base with which to fight this terrible bill. Presumably, when the almost-formed coalition is fully in place, that coalition will officially take over fundraising where Glenn left off.

So then, to repeat: ~$80,000 of that total you saw was already earmarked for Carney's district. The rest (~$40,000 so far) has been raised just this one day alone to hold Steny Hoyer accountable for his sell-out to the Bush Administration and his big telecom donors.

This was probably longer than necessary. Sorry.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Kevin Drum writes about Glenn
Let's check in with the lefty side of things. Glenn?

Every time someone labels him, I howl. Lefty? Mmmm, only in the sense he is to the left of Michael Ledeen and Gary Bauer. What, have you seen him advocating nationalizing all industry?

But then there are those who suspect he's a paleocon, or a libertarian, or a [fill in the blank].

Glenn is sui generis. But has a strong libertarian streak, and like most sensible libertarians, is "left" on civil liberties.

Mona: What, have you seen [Glenn Greenwald] advocating nationalizing all industry?

I live in Berkeley, so nearly everyone I know is decidedly on the left, but I doubt any of them would endorse that kind of policy. They tend to be people who favor national health care, anti-poverty programs, gun control, public education, and high taxes, but they're also reconciled to the idea of a market economy, albeit a well-regulated one.

That said, I've seen Greenwald express many opinions that aren't even remotely "lefty", e.g. support for gun rights, and he's been very explicit about distrust of government and politicians being a central component of his political philosophy. This is pretty much anathema to modern leftists - if there's just one general principle that characterizes the Left in America, it's the conviction that any social problem can be solved by legislation and tax dollars. (That's a bit of an exaggeration, of course - and not universal - but skepticism of government power isn't usually a lefty trait. For instance, calling for a return of the Fairness Doctrine, which Glenn opposes, requires a near-supernatural confidence in the ability and integrity of the FCC.)

The basic question is whether covert, warrantless spying on presumed-innocent American citizens is constitutional. Seems to me you'd have to answer that question (and defend any affirmative Nazi conclusion that it is) before aiding and abetting voluntary collusion by participating telecoms.

Bush's brush-off of the law of the land (FISA) is, to me, a transgression second only to the country's apathy in regard to it.

I know "Nazi" get's slung around a lot, but Kristalnacht was THE major event in the consolidation of German authoritarian power. It was the brainchild of Goebells and Goering, and even Adolf Hitler was prepared to distance himself from it in the planning stages. But it was a success, and it profoundly convinced Hitler that he *could do anything he wanted.* Bush made 9/11 our Kristalnacht.

Kristalnacht was a success because it proved that the German people had bought Hitler's pitch that their nation was direly threatened by Jews and...God knows what else! And its success was sealed because, even though German law forbade such acts, the police -- the respected civil authorities -- wouldn't lift a finger, and wouldn't because they agreed with the tenants of a political party.

These kind of things become legal precedents. If Obama tries to quietly weasel away, I'll know how much he really wants to change Washington.

Law is really a white racist thing. It has diminishing importance in multicultural America. Imagine if we had respect for law, why, we'd have to deport new Americans whose only crime is not having papers!

"Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons."
--R. Buckminster Fuller

I gave them some money, but I think a campaign to fight this has to necessarily include Obama. I didn't originally support him for President because I never saw him taking a stand on important issues (Clinton too btw). Whether it was a torture bill, FISA, etc. they both hide out, fly in at the last moment, and vote and even sometimes give a good speech; unfortunately it was always a week after the votes were really tallied. I want more leadership than that.

So where is the world cup this year?

While I object to a lot of what the phone companies do, I'm willing to give them a pass on this.

If the democrats in Washington, if the media, if the generals, if the professional spies, and the voters of America didn't stand up to the White House for their civil liberities, why should the telco's take the fall for doing what everybody else was doing - letting the White House walk all over them?

While I object to a lot of what the phone companies do, I'm willing to give them a pass on this.

If the democrats in Washington, if the media, if the generals, if the professional spies, and the voters of America didn't stand up to the White House for their civil liberities, why should the telco's take the fall for doing what everybody else was doing - letting the White House walk all over them?

Patrick Meighan @10:02 - That is exactly correct as you have it there.

Both I here and dday here have discussed the coming FISA "compromise" and specifically have called on Obama to take the lead. A whole lot of our commenters from Emptywheel/FDL called and/or faxed Obama's offices and got diddly squat other than "he is on the record against it" and "we will forward your concerns". That is also exactly what I got when I called. Not very promising; and very disappointing. Obama needs some serious pushing and, since the Democratic Leadership has already stated late today that they are going to ram this through, Obama will make or break this issue.

sometime a comment will come out of moderation that I posted regarding Obama, but I neglected to get my name on it. So, whenever it shows up, it was by bmaz

Thats a rather copout position Darwin.

There have been countless bank robberies over the years, so why should I be charged with a crime, type thinking.

Why, given your logic Darwin, I could break into your home, because the sneak and peakers do, and you would say, hey, its okay?

The people are trying to stand up for their civil liberties but our elected representatives are more interested in campaign contributions and making contacts for their future lobbying company.

Obama didn't bother showing up for the oil company windfall tax vote so I don't expect much from him on this one either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an Obama supporter. Mainly because I believe he'll provide "change" with a little "c" (just by virtue of not being a Bushite), not because I expect he'll provide real Change.

Any candidate who would actually try to provide substantial (and positive) change never gets very far in the nominating process. The media has us convinced that anyone who would attempt to unsnarl the corporate mess we've gotten ourselves into would never win the election. And given politics and the media today, they're probably right.

dervin,

If it really is the case that other entities besides the telecoms bear responsibility for this lawbreaking, let the telecoms make that claim in a court of law. Allowing the current litigation to proceed would allow the telecoms to make that claim, and for our judiciary to process that claim in accordance with our American tradition of jurisprudence. Granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms, by contrast, takes the telecoms off the hook without judiciary review, and frees the administration and everyone else of responsibility, besides (particularly because the administration has successfully invoked the "state secrets" privilege at each turn to block every last alternative judicial inquiry into its unfettered lawbreaking, and the complicity of its allied entities). If, indeed, you feel that others are to blame for the massive violations of American privacy rights conducted by the telecoms since early '01 (several months before 9/11), your only hope to see that exposed is to support the litigation currently proceeding against the telecoms, and to stand against the retroactive immunity currently being gifted to them by our supine Congress.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Patrick Meighan, that is a very good comment. I tried to post a comprehensive comment with two or three links that appears to have been terminally caught up in moderation as a result. For you and any others interested, you will find some decent info and Obama's phone and fax numbers here.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/06/10/the-fisa-fix-and-obamas-profile-in-courage-leadership-moment/

Yes, I think Obama will probably choose Door #3 and just not show up for the vote at all. Those scheduling conflicts are hell. Poor guy. But he's 100% against bad things, be assured.

"But will he just cast a no vote and then bemoan the bill's eventual passage, or will he expend some real political capital to try to keep it from passing?"

While I'd love to be surprised, has Mr. Kumbaya taken a leadership podition on ANY core issue of the Democratic base in his Senate career (admittedly, all four years of it)? TBH, with the exception of Dodd (and Kucinich, if he counts), I don't expect any of the 2008 Dem candidates to do more than cast a quiet no vote, and that probably would have included my favored candidate Edwards if he were still in the Senate.

BTW, Kevin, I'd like to point out a substantive, and possibly factual, error in your discussion of the "compromise." You note that it would allow review in the FISA court; my understanding is that this has been changed to a district court, though that may be fluid. Of course, in either case, the level of review is a farce, offering immunity upon demonstrating the Nazi defense that we all know to be true--they were just following Der Fuerhrer's orders. But if the law were to contain a reasonable standard review (i.e., looking to the actual legality of the actions), placing that review in the FISA court would be unacceptable since that court operates in complete secrecy and on a non-adversary basis.

I really think these blogs take control of their congressmen/women and make them do what is right.

It's too bad Steny Hoyer is such a corporate kiss ass - that HAS GOT to come to a stop. A these liberal bloggers CAN make it happen.

Regardless of whether you think it is fair for the telecoms to be held financially responsible for complying with Bush administration requests to spy on their customers, the real issue behind the issue to grant them immunity is avoiding the discovery process.

With the Bush administration refusing to respond to congressional oversight and using national security claims to block lawsuits against the government, the lawsuits against the telcos are the only remaining avenue to determine how extensive the spying was (it reportedly included monitoring communications by U.S. citizens) and when it started (reportedly before 9/11/2001) among other things.

...the real issue behind the issue to grant them immunity is avoiding the discovery process.

When I ask myself "To what problem is this bill the solution?", this is the only answer I come up with that makes sense.

The impotent Democrats in Congress can’t even get Bush and team to turn over missing e-mails sent by the Bushies on taxpayer-funded servers. On FISA, expect them to dutifully roll over and take it up the poopchute from Bush and Co. one more time…..

the real issue behind the issue to grant them immunity is avoiding the discovery process...With the Bush administration refusing to respond to congressional oversight and using national security claims to block lawsuits against the government, the lawsuits against the telcos are the only remaining avenue to determine how extensive the spying was

Just so. Don't get caught up in the administration's framing of this as primarily a fairness-to-telecoms issue.

Telecoms should get immunity ONLY if they expose to Congress the entire extent of the Bush program and agree to testify against lawbreakers in the Bush administration.

I too am waiting patiently for a statement from the Obama camp. It really should be a no-brainer because when you strip away all the fearmongering rhetoric, this really comes down to a question of caving to lobbyists.

It should be easy

is it cumulative and have they "only" raised $40,000 since this morning?

They did indeed start with 80,000 in the till from the previous effort.

Really shows where we are that Kevin thinks of Glenn as a lefty. So anyone guided by constitutional ideals is a Lefty?

Recall. Qwest declined the opportunity to attend the party.

Patrick Meighan, that's a nice point, the problem is going to court is like going to war, you never know what might happen. I just don't want to turn the Telco's into a scapegoat for everybody else's failures.

Congress hasn't punished the Bush Administration over this, but they can go after the telco's because nobody likes the Telco's (which is nobody's fault except for the telco's).

Plus, considering the general evilness of the Bush Administration - who knows what kind of threats were leveled at the telco's. I think we should delay a decision until after Obama becomes president.

Dear Jet, I always wondered what a hyperactive 12 year old would write on a political website, and now I know. But anyway, what the telco's did was more along the lines of your superintendent opening the door for the cops to go into your apartment. Now you might be the type of vindictive little brat to sue your super into the poorhouse, but adults will look at the intimidation and the lies the cops used on him.

I'm sure David Broder, JokeLine and Richard Cohen will have very harsh words for any Dems who are so obstinate, irrational and Unserious as to oppose this eminently Sensible Compromise™, which as all good Villagers know means "whatever Bush asks for.".

Now you might be the type of vindictive little brat to sue your super into the poorhouse, but adults will look at the intimidation and the lies the cops used on him.

What an excellent analogy. Because the telecoms, which are lawyered to the gills, which know exactly what is and isn't legal, and the intimidation of which almost certainly consists solely of the withholding of lucrative government contracts, are perfectly comparable to a powerless, low-earning building super.

Poor, victimized telecoms. What you call "vindictive" the rest of us call the preservation--more accurately, the restoration--of our privacy and civil liberties.

Look, by focusing so doggedly on the telecoms, you continue to ignore the actual point, which is that without the litigation proceeding, we have no discovery, and we never find out the extent of what the administration has done. It really is that simple.

So anyone guided by constitutional ideals is a Lefty?
Rule of law has such a liberal bias...

What you call "vindictive" the rest of us call the preservation--more accurately, the restoration--of our privacy and civil liberties.
Not to mention, aren't these telco's violating their own contracts with their customers? Do the telco's have a right to disclose their customers info/communications without a LEGAL mandate, i.e. a warrant?

Dervin:

"Congress hasn't punished the Bush Administration over this, but they can go after the telco's because nobody likes the Telco's (which is nobody's fault except for the telco's)."

If you're waiting for me to defend Congress, you'll have a very, very, very long wait. Its performance throughout this whole endeavor is a living illustration of the reason why I'm no longer a Democrat.

"Plus, considering the general evilness of the Bush Administration - who knows what kind of threats were leveled at the telco's."

Good point. The only way to find out is to defeat this retroactive immunity bill, allow the lawsuits to go forward and give the telecoms their day in court to tell us, exactly, what king of threats (if any) the Bush Administration leveled against them. If, instead, this retroactive immunity is granted and these lawsuits are quashed, we'll never, ever, ever know.

"I think we should delay a decision until after Obama becomes president."

I agree with you 100%. So it's unanimous: Congress should NOT PASS THIS BILL granting the telecoms retroactive immunity and then, after Obama becomes president, Congress should readdress FISA reform.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

the lefty side of things

Leftists like Thomas Jefferson object to the FISA compromise and immunity for the telecoms.

Listen, I worked for GTE labs as a lowly engineer in the early 80's. Everyone had training on what was legal then. These corporate bosses knew very well that what they were doing violated not just FISA laws, but many other federal and state laws to give out information on their customers without a warrant.
There's no need to protect them from anything. They gave out the information with full knowledge of their illegal doings.
Remember in the 70's when FISA was being drafted, AT&T and GTE both were strongly against it because the current federal legislations out there prevented them from giving out customers details. There was a time when these telecoms remembered that it was their customers who paid the bills and the customers wouldn't put up with giving their private information to the government without a warrant.

I'd like to suggest a compromise. The Telecoms get complete retroactive immunity, and Bush and Cheney are both impeached and thrown in jail on Mars - forever.

Really shows where we are that Kevin thinks of Glenn as a lefty. So anyone guided by constitutional ideals is a Lefty?

These days? Yes.