© don wright
the latest squabbling between the house and senate demoRATs reached another nadir yesterday, with majority leader reid refusing to bring the competing bills to the floor for debate.
it looks like the demoRATs are preparing yet another capitulation, led by reid, with probably no more than a whimper of disapproval from pelosi. once again giving carte blanche in the name of security and compromise, to whatever BushCo™ wants; the constitution and rule of law be damned.
more below…
in the latest non sequitur, the senate and the house are showing every sign of caving in, in spite of their rhetorical bravado.
in the senate, an attempt to bring the fisa bill to the floor was undermined by reid when the white house, and senate republicans balked because of telecon immunity. if you will recall, the primary difference between the two original bills, in brief, is the contentious issue of telecon immunity. the one approved by the intelligence committee…and supported by BushCo™…grants retroactive legal immunity to the telecoms dating back to september 11, 2001; the competing bill from the judiciary committee does not. both sen. dodd and sen. feingold have vowed to
“use ‘every tool at my [their] disposal’ to block telecom immunity, protect privacy”
including a filibuster, if it contains the immunity provision.
furthermore, according to Government Executive.com an additional provision barring u.s. intelligence agencies from using any interrogation tactic not approved in the Army Field Manual created even more opposition from the white house and senate and house RATpublicans.
…In the House, Democratic leaders postponed floor debate on the authorization bill, saying they hope to take it up Thursday. But lawmakers said the leadership might wait for the Senate to take up the bill first, an apparent tactic to counter House Republicans who oppose the ban on unapproved interrogation techniques, or torture.
House Intelligence ranking member Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said House Republicans were planning to attack the bill on the floor by pressuring the House to send it back to the conference committee with instructions to strip out the interrogation provision.
But if Democratic leaders choose to wait for the Senate to act first on the conference bill, the House would only have the option of voting up or down on the measure, preventing Republicans from pushing a motion to recommit, lawmakers and aides said.
But getting the authorization bill through the Senate will be a challenge. Senate Republicans — led by Senate Intelligence ranking member Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo. — are adamantly opposed to the torture provision.
[…]
Conversely, 13 Democratic senators and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., sent Reid a letter Wednesday urging him to make the Judiciary Committee version the main bill for floor debate. The letter was signed by every Democratic senator running for president.
[…]
The Judiciary Committee is also scheduled to mark up an alternative bill Thursday from Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that would substitute the government as the defendant in lawsuits against the telecommunications companies.
additionally, in what looks like a pre-emptive move to provide cover and support for diane feinstein who has already voted for it once, new ag michael muckasey published his first op-ed in yesterdays l.a. times, wherein he repeats the lies and obfuscations of the administration, verbatim:
A FISA fix
…The Senate Intelligence Committee’s bill is not perfect, and it contains provisions that I hope will be improved. However, it would achieve two important objectives. First, it would keep the intelligence gaps closed by ensuring that individual court orders are not required to direct surveillance at foreign targets overseas.
Second, it would provide protections from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that have been sued simply because they are believed to have assisted our intelligence agencies after the 9/11 attacks. The bill does not, as some have suggested, provide blanket immunity for those companies. Instead, a lawsuit would be dismissed only in cases in which the attorney general certified to the court either that a company did not provide assistance to the government or that a company had received a written request indicating that the activity was authorized by the president and determined to be lawful.
It is unfair to force such companies to face the possibility of massive judgments and litigation costs, and allowing these lawsuits to proceed also risks disclosure of our country’s intelligence capabilities to our enemies. Moreover, in the future we will need the full-hearted help of private companies in our intelligence activities; we cannot expect such cooperation to be forthcoming if we do not support companies that have helped us in the past.
[…]
guess who gets to make the determination of legality? ……any other questions?
l will leave it to you to read the whole thing, but thanks, once again to the demoRATs, we’re stuck with another ag who is loyal only to the administration, and albeit, smarter than his predecessor, who will continue to do his masters bidding, as will the congress.
harry, you won’t ever win if you keep running away.
for more background glen greenwald has penned several excellent essays regarding the fisa/immunity issue, HERE, and HERE.
here we go again.
