Hold Fast

Ryan Singel at Threat Level makes a key observation about the information in the Washington Post story yesterday on the potential FISA deal in Congress.
In the end, it turns out it’s all about the emails.
The fight in Congress and the big push for expanded wiretapping powers has nothing to do with intercepting foreign-to-foreign phone calls […]

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Another day, another article pointing towards Democratic capitulation on FISA. The Washington Post reports:
Some aides on Capitol Hill were discussing the potential for the House passing the Senate version but breaking it into two votes: one on the portion of the bill that deals with revising FISA provisions and a second on the immunity measure.
This […]

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Speaking of the Bush administration’s continued expansion of executive powers that impinge on the possibility for legislative or judicial oversight, Atrios writes:
To the extent that this is about his successor, my guess is that they figure that Congress will rediscover its interest in oversight and objections to presidential executive power overreach. The very powers Bush […]

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McJoan at Daily Kos highlights an example of telecom lobbying groups expressing their opposition to retroactive immunity (PDF link to original letter).
To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives:
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) strongly opposes S. 2248, the “FISA Amendments Act of 2007,” as passed by the Senate on February 12, 2008. […]

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Kagro X writes to Democrats in Congress. Here’s part:
“We’ve got to be fair to the companies,” they say.
Why?
Why not let the judges — whose actual job it is to be fair to everyone who comes into their courtrooms — worry about being fair to the telecom companies?
Why not let federal judges — who don’t and […]

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Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chair Silvestre Reyes, February 14th, in a letter to President Bush:
You have also suggested that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether […]

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Shorter Glenn Greenwald: The civil liberties debate in America isn’t what it used to be.
Back then, the premise that unchecked presidential spying would lead to massive abuses — as it did for decades — was just a given, something beyond the realm of what could be reasonably debated. Now, only far Left partisans worry about […]

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The plaintiffs of one of the lawsuits against the telecom companies have written an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune about why they sued AT&T. Their suit would be killed by legislation that includes retroactive immunity. There’s been a lot of questioning from the right about the motives of the plaintiffs and the lawyers to […]

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In today’s New York Times, Eric Lichblau has an article going about how the current telecom debate is not focused on any security related matters, but instead hinges on granting retroactive immunity to telecoms that helped the Bush administration spy on Americans.
The warnings from President Bush and his senior aides have grown more urgent over […]

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McJoan at Daily Kos:

Now it’s not at all clear that this is legislative effort is actually happening or whether it’s a trial balloon or if it’s real. But whatever it is, it would be phenomenally stupid to try to enact. First, the House has already voted on the Senate bill, the Protect AT&T Act, and […]

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