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by BooMan
Via Senate by Cboldt, here are the terms of the Senate unanimous consent agreement.
Summary of the UC Agreement for Passing FISA
Same list of amendments, with a little more detail and links to parts of the Congressional Record that contain the text of the amendments. CAUTION: This is a draft, the summaries of subject material were prepared in haste, not carefully. I'm looking for a PDF of S.Amdt3911 for pagination and line numbering.
Harry Reid did a good job negotiating this agreement, but he still screwed us by introducing the Intelligence Committee version of this bill (which has telecom immunity) as the base bill rather than the Judiciary Committee version (which does not). As a result, the Feingold-Dodd amendment (A.3907) must pass to prevent a blatant obstruction of justice under the cover of law. Reid overcame Republican demands that A.3907 suffer a 'silent filibuster', where it would have required 60 votes to pass. That's good, but there is a problem. On January 24th, the Senate voted on the Judiciary version of the bill and the Democrats only got thirty-six votes. If Clinton and Obama vote, we will have thirty-eight votes. The Judiciary Bill and the telecom immunity issue are not synonymous, but that vote is a good indication of how senators will vote on A.3907. The offending senators were: Bayh, Inouye, T. Johnson, Landrieu, Lieberman, McCaskill, Mikulski, Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor, Rockefeller, and Salazar. There is no way we can persuade all of them to change their minds, but you should call them about this vote and let them know that you consider them to be aiding and abetting the cover-up of crime, and therefore they are committing a quasi-criminal act which is only legal because Congress gets to decide what is legal. If they want to write a law specifically designed to cover up crimes by the executive branch of government, they can do that. It's your responsibility to tell them that they are abdicating their responsibility to uphold (what is normally understood to be) the Law. Some of these quasi-criminals will try to salve their consciences by voting for Sen. Whitehouse and Sen. Specter's A.3927, which will substitute the federal government for the telecoms as the defendant in any civil litigation related to illegal warrantless electronic surveillance. Don't be fooled. Even if this amendment passes the executive branch could successfully kill all lawsuits by invoking executive privilege or the state secrets privilege, and thereby cover up their crimes. Whitehouse-Specter (3927) is nothing more than a ruse designed to let senatorial sell-outs act like they are concerned about violations of our privacy rights, when they could give two shits. Tell your senators that you don't want to see any bullshit, like them voting against Feingold-Dodd and then voting for Whitehouse-Specter. You want a yes vote on the first, and only if the Feingold-Dodd fails, do you want to see a 'yes' on Whitehouse-Specter. Otherwise, you want to see a no on 'Whitehouse-Specter'. The other amendments that are a very high priority are Feinstein's A.3910, which reiterates that FISA is the exclusive means of collecting electronic foreign intelligence (60 votes) and Feingold's A. 3912, 3913, and 3915 (50 votes). You want 'yeses' on all of those amendments. It's important that we win as many of these battles as possible. There are other battles that are less important (like Cardin's amendment to move the sunset to four years from six), but the really important stuff is contained in Feingold's amendments, and some of them have a good chance of passing. Will Senator Dodd filibuster the bill on final passage if it contains telecom immunity (as it will)? I have heard mixed messages on that. He did agree to this process (he gave his consent). Yet, he has long promised to filibuster any bill that provides immunity. We shall see. Either way, though, his filibuster is unlikely to be successful. And you have Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller to thank for that.
Name Phone FAX
Bayh (202) 224-5623 (202) 228-1377
FISA: What to Ask of Your Senators | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
FISA: What to Ask of Your Senators | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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