Category: Rule of Law

Joe Lieberman Helps Fear Mongering on FISA

This ad is currently running in Connecticut against freshman Congressman Chris Murphy:

The ad is being aired by an ultra right wing organization, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Not shockingly, Joe Lieberman is one of their “distinguished advisors.” Jane Hamsher reports:

Republican attack ads pressuring House Democrats to capitulate on telecom immunity started running in Connecticut against Chris Murphy and Joe Courtney this week. They’re funded by an organization called the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and they’re exceptionally dishonest even by Republican standards.

Take a stroll over to the Advisory Board of FDD. Who’s on it? That’s right. Your good friend and mine, Joe Lieberman. He’s a “distinguished advisor” of an organization running attack ads in an election year against Democrats for supporting a core Democratic position in his own home state.

If the Democrats take the Senate by even so much as one more vote this year, the screeching to have this guy stripped of his seniority and kicked off his committee assignments is going to be deafening. I hope everybody knows that.

The FDD has some other Democratic (read: real Democratic) members on their Board. Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Eliot Engel have had their names removed in the last few days. Today, Democratic operative Donna Brazile did the same, issuing this statement:

 As a member of the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, I strongly condemn their misleading and reckless ad campaign. The organization is using fear mongering for political purposes and worse, their scare tactics have the effect of emboldening terrorists and our enemies abroad by asserting our intelligence agencies are failing to do their job. I am deeply disappointed they would use my name since no one has consulted me about the activities of the group in years.

When I first joined the foundation several years ago, it was a bi-partisan organization that was committed to defending democratic values and protecting the nation against threats posed by radical Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, due to the influence of their funders, in the last few years, FDD has morphed into a radical right wing organization that is doing the dirty work for the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans. I have made it clear to the organization that these types of lies undercut our national security and serve only to divide us. Furthermore, I reiterated to FDD that I no longer wish to be affiliated with such a group and have asked them to remove my name from the Board. In this post 9/11 world, Americans should not be attacking other Americans, we should be standing together to make this country safer and stronger against the real threat of terrorism.

To my knowledge, Joe Lieberman has been silent on the attack ads being run against Chris Murphy and Joe Courtney. On paper, Joe Lieberman remains a member of the Democratic caucus in the Senate. Democrats from Connecticut are being savaged by an organization Lieberman advises. At best, Lieberman is sitting on his hands. But we all know “Short Ride” Joe is capable of much worse than sitting on his hands, so nothing would surprise me given how far this man has fallen from the levels of collegiality he so frequently clutches at when he perceives Democrats doing him wrong. I don’t expect Lieberman to step forward and try to stop these ads.

Here’s CT Bob’s remix of the ad, though:

Dem Op-Ed on FISA

House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers, Intel Chair Silvestre Reyes, Senate Judiciary Chair Pat Leahy, and Intel Chair Jay Rockefeller wrote a joint op-ed in the Washington Post today on FISA. They push back on the Bush administration’s fear-mongering and offer a clear explanation of how current law in the absence of the Protect America Act still provides our intelligence community with the tools they need to do their jobs. Conyers, Reyes, Leahy and Rockefeller write:

The president may try to change the topic by talking about surveillance laws, but we aren’t buying it.

We are motivated to pass legislation governing surveillance because we believe this activity must be carefully regulated to protect Americans’ constitutional rights. Companies that provide lawful assistance to the government in surveillance activities should be legally protected for doing so.

We are already working to reconcile the House and Senate bills and hope that our Republican colleagues will join us in the coming weeks to craft final, bipartisan legislation. A key objective of our effort is to build support for a law that gives our intelligence professionals not only the tools they need but also confidence that the legislation they will be implementing has the broad support of Congress and the American public.

If the president thinks he can use this as a wedge issue to divide Democrats, he is wrong. We are united in our determination to produce responsible legislation that will protect America and protect our Constitution.

The general arc of the op-ed is more political than philosophical. It rebuts arguments about how this legislative process is having an impact on national security. It also runs basic traps on rejecting violations of the 4th Amendment – but never goes into detail as to how violations of our Constitutional rights are taking place. The four committee heads also make no effort to explain why three of them passed legislation out of their committees that did not include retroactive immunity for telecom giants like Verizon and AT&T who helped the Bush administration spy on Americans without warrant, yet a fourth (Jay Rockefeller) authored a bill to the Bush-Cheney administration’s specifications for immunity.

No doubt the reason the Washington Post op-ed was so soft of the issues of civil liberties and retroactive immunity was because the three pro-Constitution Democrats penned it alongside the anti-Constitution Jay Rockefeller. In this instance, a unified Democratic front against Republican political attacks was more important than a unified front defending the Constitution. While I’m glad Conyers, Reyes, and Leahy are keeping this issue front and center, it’s deeply disappointing that they failed to use this opportunity to fight against the Rockefeller-Bush-Cheney legislation including retroactive immunity that the Senate passed two weeks ago.

No Chance for Acquitals in Guantanamo

I wonder what it would be like to live in a country that abides by the rule of law. The Nation:

When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, [Col. Morris] Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes–the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department. “[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,” recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, something that had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.'”

It read the first portion of this article earlier today. Reading the paragraphs above made me disgusted by the state of the rule of law in America. It simply no longer exists and any evidence to the contrary is more likely an untouched vestige that clings to existence because no one in the Bush administration has gotten around to tearing it down than any signifier of our nation’s commitment to the principles that have defined our country for over 230 years.

Then I read the remainder of the article and realized how much worse what our government is doing in Guantanamo is, how far this goes beyond show trials reminiscent of what Stalin wanted to do in Nuremberg.

The terrible irony is that even if acquittals were possible, the government has declared that it can continue to detain anyone deemed an “enemy combatant” for the duration of hostilities–no matter the outcome of a trial. And most of the 275 men held at Guantánamo are classified as “enemy combatants” while the hostilities in the “war on terror” could be never-ending.

Says ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner, “The trial doesn’t make a difference. They can hold you there forever until they decide to let you out.” The one person to be released from Guantánamo through the judicial process, Australian David Hicks, pleaded guilty. As Wizner wrote in the Los Angeles Times in April 2007, “In an ordinary justice system, the accused must be acquitted to be released. In Guantánamo, the accused must plead guilty to be released.”

This is solely about proving the Republican Party and the Bush administration right. Nothing that is done in the name of national security is about being right or diminishing future threats. Nothing that has the trappings of the rule of law exists with the autonomy necessary to validate the process as a symbol of our judiciousness. This presidency and the outlets it has provided for the anti-Constitution Republican Party to take hold are a blight on our country. I don’t even know how to adjudicate the chances for our country to survive as we know it when it has already been changed to such a profound degree.

Yesterday I had a conversation with two progressive activists. In talking with my work around stopping retroactive immunity, they remarked that it was great that I had such passion for this issue and had found outlets – through the Dodd campaign and CREDO Action – to work against warrantless wiretapping. While I agreed that I was very lucky to find platforms that give me opportunities to organize on an issue I care deeply about, how profoundly depressing is that I, as a millenial American activists, have to work full time to defend the Constitution? To stand up for the rule of law? To remind our elected officials that it is their duty to maintain a system of checks and balances established by our Founders? I think I’d be much happier living in a country where the pillars of civil justice were not being deliberately removed by the ruling party than working passionately to stop them from succeeding.

More on that CT GOP FISA Release

Gabe at CT Local Politics goes into far greater detail rebutting the lies and distortions of CT GOP chair Chris Healy on the Protect America Act and retroactive immunity that I covered yesterday. Gabe takes about a dozen separate hits on Healy while breaking down the release step by step. I liked this part:

If I was meaner, and more willing to get into the spirit of the CT GOP’s press release, I would insinuate that their opposition to the the rule of law was not due to a (false) concern about safety, but due to the campaign contributions Republicans receive from telecom companies ($61.5+ Million to Republicans since 1990 – 56% of their total). After all, “[t]he entire issue here is liability protection for the carriers.”

Gabe doesn’t quite go there, but he succeeds in making Healy and the CT GOP look even more foolish than previously imagined.

GOP/FISA Stupidity Reaches New Heights

Yesterday I brought up the new, completely false narrative Republicans are using to attack Democrats on FISA. They’re accusing Democrats who’ve defended the rule of law as being in the pocket of trial lawyers (!!). This is wrong, as the cases being brought against the telecom companies are being litigated by lawyers for two not-for-profit organizations, the ACLU and the EFF. The lawyers working the case make only a fraction of what the lawyers defending the big telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T make.

Connecticut Republican Party Chair Chris Healy released a breathless attack on the Democratic delegation yesterday for their votes in defense of the Constitution. Healy, last seen doing a Dean Wormer impersonation, charged CT’s Democrats with being not merely in the pockets of “trial lawyers” lobbying Congress against retroactive immunity, but with having received donations from law firms throughout their career.

“It is easy to see why the Democrats oppose this reasonable tool to prevent attacks on America – special interest money from trial lawyers,” said Healy. “As they say ‘follow the money’ and the truth will be revealed.”

The following are records of the total amount each Connecticut Democrat has received in campaign contributions to date:

Larson : $329,000 in career receipts from law firms http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allindus.asp?CID=N00000575

DeLauro: $404,000 in career receipts from law firms http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allindus.asp?CID=N00000575http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allsector.asp?CID=N00000615

Murphy: $283,000. in career receipts from law firms http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.asp?id=CT05&cycle=2006 http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/sector.asp?CID=N00027566&cycle=2008

Courtney: $250,000 in career receipts from law firms: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/sector.asp?CID=N00024842&cycle=2008 http://www.opensecrets.org/races/sector.asp?ID=CT02&cycle=2006&special=N http://www.opensecrets.org/races/sector.asp?ID=CT02&cycle=2002&special=N

“In case Democrats don’t know it, we are at world with an enemy that knows how to use modern technology to communicate,” said Healy. “The failure of Congressmen Larson, DeLauro, Murphy and Courtney to see it and act should give every Connecticut reason to be outraged.” [Emphasis & shoddy formatting in the original]

Healy’s claiming that law firms, not just lobbyists or lawyers currently working cases against the big telecoms, are the cause of the Democratic opposition to retroactive immunity. Sheesh. It’s almost as if Healy thinks the telecoms are sending their customer support technicians to represent themselves in court, not polished and expensive corporate lawyers.

A number of things stand out with Healy’s statement. First, rather than actually trying to make a specific charge correlating lobbyist contributions to Connecticut’s Democrats to their retroactive immunity stance, he just goes into Open Secrets and starts posting by industry. We already know that the trial lawyers aren’t lobbying Congress on retroactive immunity. Healy’s rhetoric is evidence of the lack of causation between the lobbying patterns and the Democratic legislative stance.

Second, Healy repeats another tired Republican FISA talking point – that FISA hasn’t been updated to reflect changes in modern technology. This is also patently false. FISA has been modernized many times since 1978, including post-9/11 to include changes in email and cell phone technology. To wit, in October 2001, following a FISA modernization passed by Congress, President Bush himself said:

This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we’ll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.

But Healy, like the rest of the anti-Constitution GOP, won’t let the facts get in the way of a fear-based argument.

The Republicans cannot win the retroactive immunity debate on the merits of the behavior of the telecoms and the Bush administration. They cannot justify their lawlessness or their requests for help from the telecom companies. All they can do is stomp around, making noise, and peddling in fear. Their arguments hold no water and their message is as unserious as can be.  Healy is just the latest incarnation of the moral and political failures of the Republican Party to uphold the rule of law and talk to the American public respectfully and with the regard our citizenry deserves.

GOP on FISA: They Make More Things Up

You know things are getting bad for the Republicans when their main line of attack on retroactive immunity becomes completely reliant on falsehood. Conservative columnist Robert Novak pens a column in today’s Washington Post that peddles the lie that Democrats are only opposed to retroactive immunity to protect the interests of the trial lawyer lobby. Novak writes:

The true reason for blocking the bill was Senate-passed retroactive immunity to protect from lawsuits private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation’s torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.

The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party’s most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving individuals’ personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant.

That’s a flat-out lie. First, the cases against the telecoms are being handled largely by the not-for-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU. Their lawyers are not making money on the outcome of these cases and are working in the interest of the Constitution and the rule of law. Glenn Greenwald recently interviewed Cindy Cohn of the EFF on this subject and her response serves as a top to bottom pre-buttal of these GOP talking points.

Most of the EFF lawyers worked in those big fancy firms for big fancy salaries, and took big paycuts to join us, because they wanted to do personally fulfilling work and feel like they were making the world a better place.

What I tell young lawyers who come to me and say: “I really want to work for EFF — you have such great lawyers,” I say: “Take your current paycheck, rip it in three pieces, take any third, and that’s about what you’ll get working for EFF.” The lawyers who work for EFF are making some of the biggest contributions to this organization, because they are making far less than they could on the open market in exchange for being able to work on things they believe in every day.

For Novak or any other Republican shill to say that the lawyers representing the plaintiffs against the big telecoms are in it for the money is wrong on its face and profoundly offensive.

Second, Matt Stoller of Open Left spoke with Jon Haber, CEO of the American Association of Justice. Here’s what Haber said:

No matter how much the RNC – at the bidding of telecomm CEOs – tries to deflect the real issue, we have nothing to do with illegal wiretapping since we actually believe in the rule of law.

That is, the trial lawyers aren’t lobbying Congress on retroactive immunity. Even the libertarian/conservative leaning Cato Institute describes the trial lawyers meme as “one of the biggest canards of the FISA debate.” It was hard to imagine a situation where a Republican talking point on FISA was more wrong than the “the world wil end if the Protect America Act expires” meme that was running rampant, but this may be it.

And Then There’s The Bad Side

In the last couple days I’ve been able to highlight some very good examples of Democratic candidates for Congress that make me optimistic about the ability of incoming candidates to hinge onto important progressive legislative fights now. Jim Himes and Donna Edwards have set the stage for not only what is good to hear from candidates, but also what Democrats currently in office should be saying.

Given that we’re talking about Democrats, though, it’s not shocking that we now have an example of a Democratic candidate being wrong on the issue and wrong on the message: Kay Hagan, who’s running for the North Carolina Senate nomination. Via Pam Spaulding, Kosh of BlueNC reports on Hagan’s stance on retroactive immunity:

She was asked if she would have voted for, or against, the FISA bill this week which would have granted retroactive immunity to Telcos for felony violations of the current FISA law.

Ms. Hagan explained that she was against Telcos spying on Americans, but that she would have voted FOR the bill, and granted them immunity, but that future law breaking would not be tolerated.

I don’t have text or word for word quotes of what Hagan said and Kosh doesn’t provide them, so I can’t delve too deeply into how problematic her statements are. Kosh goes on to break down why this statement is so flawed, though I’m sure it should be obvious to anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog. There’s nothing that justifies changing the law retroactively to give telecommunications companies a Get Out of Jail Free card. They knew the law and they broke it – and worse, they helped the Bush administration break the law in an area that there is simply no evidence it needed breaking.

I’m not going to speculate on why Hagan is so wrong on this. Hopefully it was a product of not knowing enough about the FISA fight, which is entirely likely for a challenger candidate who’s never served in national office. But it may also be a reflection of Hagan’s politics. For what it’s worth, Kosh reports this on Hagan’s opponent: “For the record, Jim Neal was completely opposed to immunity and would have voted NO on the bill.”