Month: January 2008

Other Wars

John McCain really is insane.

Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters on Sunday, “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars.” Offering more of his increasingly bleak “straight talk,” he repeated the claim: “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

As I keep telling people, if you like neoconservative war mongering under the Bush administration, you’ll love a McCain administration.

People like McCain should be marginalized for their crazy ideas, not considered as potential choices to run the world’s sole super power.

Thank You Dodd

A number of progressive activists in New York, lead by RagingGurrl and Jay Ackroyd of the NY Roots Project, put together this video, thanking Senator Chris Dodd for his work to stop retroactive immunity for big telecom companies. It’s a great show of support for one of the few real leaders we’ve seen during this fight to defend the rule of law.

Will They Do the Right Thing?

Wolfrum at Shakesville seems to be drinking the same tea as I am on the FISA fight and expectations for leadership from our Democratic presidential candidates.

Senators Clinton and Obama, your country needs you. Right now. Because civil liberties matter. Because laws matter. Because retroactive immunity from lawbreaking is not an American trait. Because having a government that can and will spy on its own citizens with no authorization is the antithesis of a free country.

Later in the same post, Wolfrum makes clear how he will view Clinton or Obama missing the cloture vote on the Intel bill on Monday.

If Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are unable and unwilling to go do their job and fight for what’s right, neither of them has any business being President of the United States. Both will have proven themselves as unfit employees who will let down their employers when they’re needed the most.

Clinton and Obama should expect a vocal backlash against them if they fail to attend Monday’s cloture vote. And rightly so.

Separate from what it will mean for our country, this would be a deeply troubling turn of events for me as a progressive Democrat and a patriotic American. It’s safe to say that no Republican presidential candidate will stand up and defend the Constitution in an age where each tries to one-up the other on how much more of a security state they will create once they succeed Bush in office. I do not trust the GOP to defend the Constitution.

But where will we be, where will I be, if our two leading Democratic candidates place themselves on the side of apathy and cynicism and absenteeism on what I believe is the most important issue facing our country right now? Terrorists will not destroy our republic. Insurgents in Iraq will not march through our cities. But if our Congress fails to defend the Constitution against an administration that gives it no regard, then we must recognize that America faces an existential crisis.

We will know in less than thirty-six hours whether or not Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will man the ramparts and defend the Constitution, or if we must pass judgment on their failure to do what our country needs.

Tapping A Journalist’s Phone

Via Christy Hardin Smith, Jeff Stein of CQ Politics has a must-read article of a prominent American journalist being eavesdropped by the government. Below is a lengthy excerpt of the piece, which leaves me very concerned about the ability of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to ensure that the intelligence community follows the law when it comes to spying on Americans.

U.S. intelligence tapped the telephone calls of Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, starting in 2002…

The encounter came, mind you, amid the constant assurances from the Bush administration that the U.S. has not, and is not, “spying on Americans” or running a “warrantless domestic spying program.”
“Totally untrue!” McConnell told Wright, insisting that the conversations of American citizens with no connections to terrorists would be immediately discarded. U.S. intelligence is after al Qaeda, McConnell and others have repeatedly pledged, not innocent Americans.

“I’m telling you,” the former Air Force general said, “if you’re in the United States you have to have a warrant. Authorized by the court. Period!”

But Wright then told McConnell he had a more-than-professional interest in electronic surveillance.

“Let me make a disclosure,” he told the spy boss. “I have been monitored.” Continue reading “Tapping A Journalist’s Phone” →

Luddism in “Lost”

Brad Reed, writing at Network World, documents the case that ABC’s Lost has a Luddite strain. In short, technology is a harbinger for death on the hit TV show (which, incidentally, is one of the few network TV shows that I closely follow).

Characters who use network technology in ABC’s hit mystery drama Lost are a lot like silly teens who attempt having sex in horror movies: for it seems that anyone who engages in either seems to have a cloud of doom hanging over them. Indeed, the mere presence of network technology anywhere on the show is a harbinger of destruction and chaos, whether it comes in the form of imploding electromagnetic research labs, exploding communications centers or flooded sonar stations.

I wonder if this thread will continue and if the series will ever elucidate why technology on this island kills.

Petitioning When You Should Be Leading

Asshattery Cat

I think it would have been much easier for Harry Reid to use his powers as Majority Leader to stop bad FISA legislation from having a shot at passing than asking Democratic supporters to petition the caucus on to do the right thing on our own.

Joshua Wyeth at Lead or Get Out of the Way has much more righteous indignation than I’m going to muster now on the eve of a FISA vote where a degree of unity is needed. But I absolutely feel his outrage on this.

Will Hillary Show?

Matt Stoller at Open Left reports on a conversation he had with Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton yesterday in South Carolina on FISA. Stoller writes:

I talked to Bill first, and asked him for help on the FISA fight. He very lawyerly asked me if they need 60 votes for cloture, and I said ‘yes’. He knows that this means Clinton’s vote isn’t necessary, since it doesn’t matter if the vote total is 59-41 or 59-0.

Then I spoke with Hillary, and she said she has assured her colleagues she will go back to the Senate if they need her vote. She though that we have already lost, alluding to the Judiciary version of the bill which was voted down on Friday. I urged her to speak out publicly and she said she intends to say something on Sunday. [Emphasis added]

Bill Clinton is right to point out that blocking cloture on the Intelligence bill Monday doesn’t take Democrats finding 41 “nay” votes, but the Republicans finding 60 “yea” votes. And Hillary Clinton’s statement that she’ll speak out on this issue and vote if needed is a marginally positive note.

But let me say this: If Hillary Clinton does not show up to vote against cloture on the Intel bill, a vote that will take place while she is in Washington on Monday, it will tell us a great deal about Hillary Clinton’s priorities as a Senator and presidential candidate and an equally great deal about how Harry Reid is running the Democratic caucus. If Clinton doesn’t show up for this vote, according to this statement, it will be in large part because she was given a pass by Reid to miss it. Reid will have told her that her vote was not needed and Clinton will have taken that opportunity to continue campaigning.

I know that presidential candidates miss a great deal of votes while they’re campaigning. I lived with that reality while I was working on the Dodd campaign; as the campaign went on, his missed vote totals rose and it was an issue that we were always well aware of. A lot of the time it is hard both from a cost and a time standpoint to move a candidate from one side of the country to DC in time for a vote. Some campaigns have more money than others, but even when cost is no expense, nothing is a guarantee. I get that.

But Senator Clinton (and Senator Obama) will be in Washington on Monday. And DC isn’t that big of a city, yet neither have committed to be in attendance for the cloture vote. Taking the handful of minutes or even hours that will be needed to vote against cloture on a horrible piece of legislation which strikes against the rule of law should be requisite for every single Democratic Senator and whole lot of Republicans, too. It will be very hard for me to look at this cloture vote as anything other than a statement about how much these senators care about the US Constitution; missing it will tell me that they just don’t care about the Constitution.

The same goes for Majority Leader Reid. If he can’t crack the whip over his caucus and make sure that Senators Clinton and Obama aren’t there to make crystal clear that they stand with the American people in support of the US Constitution, I’ll read that as a statement about how much Reid cares for fully shutting down the Republican Party’s attack on the rule of law.

Our chances of winning the cloture vote on the Intel bill Monday may be good, but it takes more than one vote to stop the Republican Party’s assault on the Constitution. That makes the actions of the people that want to be our leaders in regard to this vote even more important. To jam Kia Franklin’s line yesterday about the best way for telecoms to avoid being liable for breaking the law, the best way for our presidential candidates to avoid criticism for failing up to stand up for the Constitution would be to stand up for the Constitution.

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Reid to Bush: No Shenanigans

Harry Reid responds to President Bush’s threat to veto a 30 day extension to the Protect America Act. Here’s Reid’s statement via email:

The White House threat to veto a short extension of the Protect America Act is shamefully irresponsible. The President is simply posturing in advance of Monday’s State of the Union address.

When it comes to providing a strong long-term Foreign Intelligence Surveillance bill, Democrats in Congress are focused on solutions, while Republicans are obviously playing politics.

The House has already passed a FISA bill, and the Senate was ready to pass its own bill until Republicans blocked all amendments. At the same time, Democrats are ready to extend current law for as long as necessary, but Republicans are blocking that extension and the White House is threatening a veto.

It is shenanigans like this that make Americans so eager for change. We hope the American public will remember these Republican stunts when they go to the polling booth this November.

In any event, current law ensures that no ongoing collection activity will be cut off on February 1. There will be no terrorism intelligence collection gap. But if there is any problem, the blame will clearly and unequivocally fall where it belongs: on President Bush and his allies in Congress.

I can’t recall the last time a Senator used the word shenanigans in a press release. I’m quite comfortable with its use here.

What Happens if the Protect America Act Expires?

The Protect America Act – the FISA reform bill that was passed with little debate last August – is set to expire on February 1st, which is this Friday. The fight we’ve seen in the Senate over the last week has been part of an effort to pass a new law before the PAA expires. But what happens if the PAA sunsets without a replacement law already signed by the President? In short, not much.
Michelle Richardson of the ACLU has a good explanation in this top-rated diary at Daily Kos.

If that means the so-called Protect America Act sunsets, so be it. As House Leader Hoyer and Senate Intel Chairman Rockefeller have noted, all current surveillance orders can be extended into 2009 even if the current law expires. The intel community won’t be forced to end its current warrantless wiretapping and Congress will have the time to do, well, anything else besides pass this horrible Senate bill which is really the worst option out there to date. If no legislation is enacted before the sunset, the law simply reverts to the surveillance statutes in place as of last July – with the significant addition that plans authorized over the last six months may continue even if they have been authorized without appropriate judicial oversight.

This is important because we know what the Republican obstructionists will say the moment the PAA sunsets. Despite their protestations, we will not immediately be made less safe nor will the tools the intelligence community needs be ripped from their hands come 12:01 AM Friday morning. This is very important to know because you’re going to hear a lot of hot air and intimidation coming from the GOP this week.
Now you know the law and the plain fact is that we can continue with a sober, diligent effort to pass a good FISA law that protects Americans’ civil liberties while giving our intelligence professionals all the tools we need and simultaneously ensure that this law doesn’t include retroactive amnesty for big telecoms who face litigation over the role they played in helping the Bush administration spy on Americans.
Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Chris Dodd Speaks Out Against Republican Obstructionism

This is from yesterday. Senator Chris Dodd lays into the Republican leadership for their obstructionist tactics and makes clear how unprecedented a situation the Republicans have brought us to in the Senate.

Crooks & Liars has the full video of Dodd’s speech on FISA. The text of Dodd’s prepared remarks can be read here.

Update:

Dodd’s speech is around 5,000 words long and finding one part to quote was hard, so I didn’t do it. I’ll just pull Athenae’s favored section and call it a day.

We’ve let outrage upon outrage upon outrage slide with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one.
There is only one issue here. Only one. The law issue. Attack the president’s contempt for the law at any point, and it will be wounded at all points.

That’s why I’m here today. I am speaking for the American people’s right to know what the president and the telecoms did to them. But more than that, I am speaking against the president’s conviction that he is the law. Strike it at any point, with courage, and it will wither.

That’s the big deal. That is why immunity matters—dangerous in itself, but even worse in all it represents. No more. No more. This far, Mr. President—but no further.

More and more, Americans are rejecting the false choice that has come to define this administration: security or liberty, but never, ever both.

It speaks volumes about the president’s estimation of the American people that he expects them to accept that choice.

The truth, though, is that shielding corporations from lawsuits does absolutely nothing for our security. I challenge the president to prove otherwise. I challenge him to show us how putting these companies above the law makes us safer by an iota.

That, I am convinced, he can’t do.

A-freaking-men, Senator.