Congress will look like the Bush Justice Department when the cave is in.

And Congress is supposed to trust the information provided by the Bush administration? Where's the basis for that?

The problem is very obvious: The Democratic Party did not build a public relations and media campaign (like they did w/ Social Security) to show what this Act has in store for Special Interests. Again, with the patriotic fervor that the GOP uses in such disgraceful propaganda, the masses going along uneducated about the Act, we need a grass-roots and a Party to Educate the people.
I am ashamed of the Democratic Party; still, I think the progressive movement is to blame, too.

RRRRiiiiippp..

sound of tearing up my voter registration card.

Shoulda listened to George Carlin years ago...
there IS no difference between the 2 parties.

Things to do today:
Change AT&T ( formerly Cingular) cell phone
for.....gosh, any suggestions?

Heavy sigh...

The telecoms already have immunity under FISA if they responding to a legal request from the government to conduct surveillance. Responding to an illegal request, however, is a different story.

At some level, I think you could make an argument that the fact that the administration is pushing so hard for immunity beyond what FISA already provided is an admittance, of sorts, that they conducted illegal actions.

Allowing the telecoms get sued would potentially expose those illegal actions to the public, and to the scrutiny of legitimate legal review. Can't have that!

If Mr. Reyes opinion has changed regarding immunity, since last week because of documents which he has been privy to see, can he explain to his supporters and other Americans who are have trepidation about Congress giving a post-fact immunity to the Telecom companies why his sentiments have changed without revealing anything confidential? I mean he did get elected by speaking to people and expressing his views, and as a Texan this favoritism needs to be rationalized by its sponsors for the benefit of the people, does it not? I was going to email Mr. Reyes but apparently you can only email him if you are a in the 16th district of Texas, of course you can call or write but are fucking serious. I for one liked to be included in the civic process and transparency should be used as much as humanly possible. Guys and Gals contact your reps and if you care as much as I do, let them now that their votes are being counted and will be reviewed come election time.

Here here Quasimoto,

I wrote to my representative this morning strongly urging him to change the minds of his colleagues in the house on this.

If we truly want to live in a participatory democracy, we must PARTICIPATE, and I don't mean once every couple of years cast a vote. we vote them into position to listen to us, if we say nothing, they will do as they please, if we voice our opinion and let them know that that we are paying attention, they will have to do as the majority of us say. it's that simple.

Thanks again, Quas, for keeping this point in the forefront of peoples minds.

This explains why Chimpy was so petulant at the last presser, banging the podium as furrowing his hideous eyebrows at the reporter who dared to question him.
Glenn Greenwald covered the history of FISA in his Salon column yesterday. 30 years ago, it was GOP conservatives who thought FISA was a carte blanche for domestic spying.
Bill Safire wrote "Nobody is reading the fine print, which adds up to the most sweeping authorization for the increase and abuse of wiretapping and bugging in our history." and
"…this bill would turn every telephone instrument in every home into a suspected household spy."
This was before the Internet.
Nixon's abuses during Watergate were fresh in our minds. By then, a Democrat was in the White House in 1978.
What does Mr. Safire have to say now about Bush's "need" to skirt FISA?
The excerpt ended with this
"Huey Long once said that If fascism came to America, it would come in Democratic form: in this bill, Big Brother is on the way, and he is cloaked in the mantle of civil liberties."
Now the GOP, with help form cowed Democrats, thinks FISA LIMITS Presidential power to "keep us safe".
Even super-secret courts aren't secret enough for this gang.

Congress has no power to decide the outcome of pending litigation. Congress, in passing immunity that would affect ongoing litigation against the NSA and telecoms, is illegally asserting judicial power. The act of Congress, if passed, would not be Constitutional.

Every time I get motivated to jump on the Obama band wagon(to me Hillary is a moderate R, just like her husband), this one topic makes me wonder if anyone here can tell me why I should not vote for Nader.

One the core Constitutional issue of the day, The D's and R's look the same. This does not pass, in any way, a constitutional sniff test. This is a defecation on the bill of Rights by both major parties.

www.credomobile.com

jungophile hoped thusly:

"Let's flood Reyes' office with phone calls and faxes. This fight isn't over yet; don't give up so easily."

If you can get through the flood of contacts (calls, emails, faxes) in favor of this insanity that's reportedly being astroturfed by someone...

Ssome offices are said to be receiving contacts at 3-1 ratios or greater in favor of this politically suicidal move by congress.

If nothing else, this is more proof that the Democrats in Washington, DC do not work for the citizens of the United States, but for the corporations. No law is too sacrosanct, no rule too important not to allow for them to run roughshod over them and then afterward be protected from their lawless violations of our laws and constitution. The Democrats in the Congress, with Pelosi and Reid being the chief enablers should be driven from office.

Any of you that still believe electing more of these sorts of Democratic assholes is going to improve the situation next year are just fooling yourselves. Unless and until we beging rejecting AND punishing the corporate/centrist Democrats (including Clinton and Obama) we will continue to see this same kind of horror take place. I'm still voting Democratic in November, but without any expectation that we will achieve anything beyond just not being as bad as Bushco. For in truth, the corporate/centrist Democrats in charge of our party, while not quite as bad as the right wing loonies of the Bush regime, are nearly as bad.

The Democrats in congress are cowards and whores. They don't care about our people, they only care about what their masters want and that ain't you and me folks.

It just takes longer for Cheney/Bush and their NSA powered data-mining to dig up enough dirt to blackmail enough Representatives in the House. It's a lot easier in the Senate. All they needed was enough dirt on 20 or 30 Dems...

Nancy's been under their thumb for quite a while. Impeachment is "off the table" because she's afraid of what Cheney/Bush will release about her and her husband.

Domestic spying begins at home. The very first targets were political oponents that could have thwarted Little Georgie's and Big Dick's agendas.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Just got off the phone with Reyes's office. The person I spoke to indicated that they are not capitulating. When pressed he stated that they are not removing anything from the table. That immunity was an option. He stated that unlike Bush they would not be unwilling to look at all options on the table. When I indicated that the only option on the table for Bush was immunity and that giving immunity to the telcos would effectively close any chance of charging the administration with illegal wiretapping, or as I stated, "hanging Bush with a crime." He indicated they were not interested in "hanging Bush". He then basically cut me off. Guess not being from his district he didn't need to listen to my concerns. Or maybe they has been getting hammered all day with your calls. Keep calling them!!!!

(202)225-4831

Keep hammering them with your calls!!! I have been sending money to campaigns all over the country. If the incumbent is a democrat and votes like a republican I have been sending their opponent what money I can. We need to let them know that even if we can vote in their re-election we can fund their opponent.

I want my country back!

I just called Reyes office. She said she'd tell Reyes, but sounded bored.

I'll grant that I've had problems with Vonage, since it relies both on having electricity and an Internet connection, but I'll tell you about one advantage it has: They can't track it.

Apparently VOIP communications skirt all of the avenues that the government has the telecoms track for them.

I'll take some inconvenience over surveillance any time.

I've reluctantly bit my tongue, only dancing around the issue. It's time to be more blunt.

The Magna Carta was written because the leadership abused power. It was a watershed event: There was an open challenge to the leadership. This is where we find ourselves today.

I enourage all TPMM readers to pass the lesson to your friends and children: This government has arrogantly put written law behind private promises. This government must be lawfully challenged. If the House does continue to "discuss" providing retroactive immunity, then the public -- outside Congress -- must expand its discussion of providing new oversight for the US government with a new Constitution.

The Magna Charta was a list of grievances and solutions. The same must be done today: Outline the solutions that will timely confront the US government on written law. There must be people who have universal standing who can come to the defense of the Constitution. This government has secretly vioalted the SUpreme Law, but has hidden the victims, denying them the evidence to prove standing.

The leadership also must be subject to more meaningful sanctions, including the deaht penalty, when they openly defy their oath, written law, and the Constitution. This crew in DC appears to view the oath, Geneva, and the Constitution as "we'll think about it, maybe"-standards. No, that needs to end. The US government must also be subject to timely challenges, and the "legal experts" need more intrusive oversight. The powers this government has have been abused. The public needs to discuss revoking abused powers; and delegating those directly to the States.

There is no excuse for this government. It has brazenly defied written law. The issue isn't about national security, terrorism, the NSA, or surveillance. It is about the principle of written law. Nothing else. When the "leadership" misses that principle, it communiates it is not legitimate: It puts itself beyond written law.

This is a watershed event. The public and our future generations must embrace this arrogant abuse of power as the catalyst to confront this abuse. There are solutions. The public can openly discuss new oversight. Let's discuss the needed reforms to this Constitution, and ensure this abuse does not happen again. Congress, the President, and the Courts are the problem. It's time we openly challenge them with an open discussion, and an outline for the new requirements they shall be held.

It's time to stop asking them to do their job. It's time to outline the new system of government that will impose timely consequences on them for doing what they continue to do: Defy written law, and pretend nothing will happen. They have stupidly repeated the abuses of King John and King George and will regret their miscalculations. Let's get to work and solve this failed US government. It is incapable of reform and self-governance. It can be fixed.

The Facilitatrix had false hope...

"Apparently VOIP communications skirt all of the avenues that the government has the telecoms track for them."

Errr... no. You seem to not understand what the government did.

They tapped, and archived, the internet... as much of the US domestic portion of the internet and phone data as they were interested in and could get their hands on.

And as this was pre-9/11 and as they were tapped in through the domestic regional offices nationwide of giant telcos such as AT&T it seems certain that terrorists were not high on their list of priorities. What they were leaching were vast amounts of personal domestic data.

And with rooms full of links to other major telcos delivering gigabits of data per second to the NSA archives that was a hell of a lot of recorded personal data gathered and archived over the years... all without warrants... all of it as illegal as hell... and it all started before 9/11.

And so your hopeful "I'll take some inconvenience over surveillance any time." is a false hope.

You did not, and do not, have that choice. VOIP passes through the net. Voice Over Internet Protocol. Voice over the net... if your calls were within range of this nationwide operation then the NSA has your calls on ice... forever. Without a warrant. Without any oversight of who has access to that data.

You don't have a choice.

Google Mark Klein and surveillance... and forget old shows of agents listening in on phone lines one conversation at a time. That isn't how it works anymore.

The data is archived. The data is mined. And your data is in the hands of the Bush administration.

Have a nice day.

Congress and the President have illegally delegated to themselves Article III judicical power. There is "no option" for the Congress or the President to lawfully exercise judicial power. It is also an illegal agreement for the Article I and Article II powers to jointly agree to not enforce the law:

Just got off the phone with Reyes's office. The person I spoke to indicated that they are not capitulating. When pressed he stated that they are not removing anything from the table. That immunity was an option. He stated that unlike Bush they would not be unwilling to look at all options on the table.

Immunity is not a lawful option, especially when granting that immunity is outside what Congress and the President have been delegated: Only legislative and executive power. There is no "joint agreement to not enforce the law"-power; nor is there any power to "agree to exercise non-delegated power".

The person working in Reyes office appears to be retarded:

When I indicated that the only option on the table for Bush was immunity and that giving immunity to the telcos would effectively close any chance of charging the administration with illegal wiretapping, or as I stated, "hanging Bush with a crime." He indicated they were not interested in "hanging Bush".

The staffers are, again, missing the point. Indeed, rather than let the Judicial branch exercise judicial power, the Congress and President are arguing over whether they are or are not exercising options. If the Congress isn't interested in enforcing the law, then the public needs to discuss prosecuting the MEmbers of Congress, their staff, and the legal counsel for their alleged rebellion against the Constitution.

For the clueless, retarded staffers working in Congress: Holding Bush accountable through an investigation is your job. If you don't want to do it, then resign; and accept: It is the job of We the People to prosecute you.

Truth and Reconciliation for The Telecoms

Is there any chance we could link telecom immunity to full disclosure of what the telecom companies did?
We could impose strict consequences if the telecom companies lied to us.

I'd even go so far to say that it is understandable that a corporate entity would comply with a direct presidential request.

We might not want to call it a "truth and reconciliation commission" but I'm sure someone could think up a clever and patriotic acronym that would make it irresistible to the voting public.