Staking out the moral low ground
One of my alert readers - who am I kidding? My only reader sent me an article from the Washington Post.
The Senate has passed a version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA.
The bit that's fascinating is that the Bush administration specifically included riders to the bill that retroactively grant immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally tapped the wires of American citizens so that the U.S. government could listen in. Without a warrant, this was breaking the law. But the Bush White House argues that by retroactively making it legal, those people weren't breaking the law anymore.
This is an astonishingly bold, brassy move, for a number of reasons. First, it's bold because the White House previously pursued a policy of strategic ambiguity (see the now completely irrelevant deposition (pdf) of the already mostly irrelevant Director of National Intelligence, J. Michael McConnell). Since confirming that MCI or AT&T helped spy on Americans "would cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security," there's no chance that anyone in power in America would do that, right?
Wrong. Dana Perino says: "The telephone companies that were alleged to have helped their country after 9/11 did so because they are patriotic and they certainly helped us and they helped us save lives."
Um. How exactly did they help? Read Dana's dodging and weaving here.
Second, it's bold and brassy because it makes no bones about the legality of the issue. This bill is a frank admission that the White House and the telephone company broke the law to spy on everyone in America. If they didn't break the law, then they wouldn't need retroactive immunity granted to them.
The immunity came about because the telephone companies were being sued. They were being sued for having broken the law by cooperating with illegal activity instigated by the government. The amounts that they were being sued for were enough to have seriously threatened the bottom line of some of the companies involved. So J. Michael McConnell called for immunity in the renewal of the FISA bill.
I think that bankruptcy is a just and proper consequence for telcos who engaged in illegal wiretapping. If someone breaks the law in such a way that they violate the Constitutional rights of 300 million people - all of America - then the consequences should be severe.
The companies won't go out of business. They'll change hands, the boards and executives will end up in prison, the shareholders will get cents on the dollar and the companies will continue under new ownership. This is about protecting a handful of very rich executives at telcos who made unethical and illegal decisions that happened to assist the Bush administration.
Which segues smoothly into my final point, which looks a lot like my previous point. Namely, if someone breaks the law in such a way that they violate the Constitutional rights of 300 million people - all of America - then the consequences should be severe.
I would suggest that it's time to begin considering what type of consequence you, as citizens, would like to see imposed on President George Bush.
Comments
Hey! I read your blog, too.
Okay, now I'll go read your blog.
Posted by: Mara | February 13, 2008 6:48 PM
I would suggest that it's time to begin considering what type of consequence you, as citizens, would like to see imposed on President George Bush.
Begin? Begin? A-hahahahahahaha.
Posted by: FS | February 13, 2008 6:50 PM
does this make 3 of us?
Posted by: Crys | February 13, 2008 9:53 PM
Hey, Mara! Hey, Crystal! Thanks for your comments; they made my day!
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | February 13, 2008 10:11 PM
Um, what kind of consequences should there be for the Democratic Senate that passed this? Didn't they campaign they would oppose measures like this? There must be a solution for the corruption and power abuse that's spread like a cancer through our government.
Posted by: Josh Kaminoff | February 14, 2008 5:23 AM
I think my first comment got lost, so here it goes again.
What repercussions should the newly elected Democratic Senate face for passing this resolution, especially seeing how so many campaigned on not passing this sort of legislation? I know it must be easy to blame just one person, especially one you already dislike, but it's a far more pervasive problem. There must be a way, however, to counter the corruption and abuse of power that has spread through our government like a cancer.
Posted by: Josh Kaminoff | February 14, 2008 8:33 AM
Hey, Josh!
There's a twin, conjoined problem here. The first half is that someone is running around suggesting that we do evil. That someone is pretty much Dick Cheney, with President Bush as his imperfect instrument.
The second half is that people keep buying the arguments he puts out. Every time Tony Fratto speaks, I feel like America has drifted another five or six miles out to sea, and people keep lapping it up.
The question is: who keeps lapping it up? You mentioned the Democratic Congress, but it wasn't the Democratic Congress. It was 49 Republicans and 17 Democrats who did the wrong thing, in my opinion.
Here are their names:
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Wicker (R-MS)
These are the people who allowed evil to occur. One of those people is John McCain.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | February 14, 2008 9:08 AM
Regardless of the voting record, it was a Democratic majority, and they specifically campaigned that they would use that majority to oppose this type of legislation. And while I see all these Democrats in the news and in the blogosphere railing against Bush, no one wants to piont a single finger at the ineffectual and/or hypocritical Democratic party. I'm not in love with Bush, but at least we can try to be objective.
Posted by: Josh Kaminoff | February 14, 2008 10:17 AM
Alright, I'm going to try to get a complete thought down before Liam destroys the living room:
Briefly, how can I care? Now, let me explain: I am a new mother, with a husband in school. Just one person. I read this and think, yeah, crazy. But then I go back to life. What's there to do? I mean, it seems to me you're saying "don't vote for McCain" maybe, but other than that, in all reality, why should I even bother caring when there is nothing I can really do about it and I can't tell you what effect it is having on my immediate family?
You know me, don't take me as apathetic or uncaring. But truly, other than being informed, what am I supposed to do with this information?
Posted by: Mara | February 14, 2008 2:48 PM
Hey, Josh!
There are 49 Republicans and 49 Democrats in the Senate. Dick Cheney gets a vote in the cases of ties; he votes Republican. The Democrats didn't really win the Senate; it's only considered a Democratic Senate because Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders Caucus with the Democrats, but there's nothing to stop them from Caucusing with the Republicans if they so chose. The rules allow them to switch and the Republicans would welcome them. Lieberman's views are fairly well aligned to the Republican viewpoint.
Calling this a Democratic Senate is a bit misleading. It's only got 49 Democrats in it and the Republicans get 50 votes.
That having been said, only 17 Democrats voted for this bill.
Every single Republican voted for this bill. They've made it pretty clear where they stand.
Then there's this bit about the Democrats campaigning that they would use a majority in the Senate to oppse "this type of legislation." What statements do you mean?
The following Senators made specific statements about opposing the White House's corporatist agenda: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Russ Feinstein. All of them said they'd oppose this measure. Hillary Clinton abstained rather than vote against the measure, because she was campaigning, and I hold that against her. I think this measure was important enough to return home to vote on. I'm more likely to vote for Barack Obama as a result of his vote.
Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold are the people to whom the most kudos should go. They fought against it most, including cosponsoring an amendment that would have removed the immunity for the telcos but allowed the rest of FISA to be renewed. I oppose major portions of FISA, but retroactive corporate protection is the most egregious violation of the Constitution.
Maybe what you're remembering is Nancy Pelosi saying that she would use her position in the Democratic House of Representatives to stop this specific legislation.
I'll admit that I've never understood why folks have said they could deliver the votes of others and I hold each individual accountable for their record, regardless of the polemics issued by their respective party leaders.
Nevertheless, the Democratic House has yet to vote on the bill. They have voted against an extension of the Protect America Act, which expires on Saturday.
It makes me feel a little bit sick that the Bush administration has proposed so many evils and called them things like the "Protect America Act" and the "Patriot Act" and "No Child Left Behind," although it was Clinton who proposed the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" that outlaws mathematics.
The reason I want to stick it to the Bush Administration is that they propose the evil. It wasn't a Senator who came up with the idea of making telcos immune to the law, it was the Bush administration.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | February 14, 2008 5:22 PM
Hey, Mara.
I'm not saying: "Don't vote for McCain."
I'm saying: "This is what our government is doing, and it is immoral and wrong."
Why do you care? I don't know that you would. It's not the kind of issue I'd expect you to get worked up about.
But there's a choice coming. Either we get some privacy or we don't. And the government is seeing to it that there is nothing private, that every phone call and every email and every post is catalogued and read and analysed stored in an enormous database so that it can be searched and studied and a case can be made against anyone who threatens the people in power.
That terrifies me.
We need the people in power to feel threatened be threatened. And let me be clear about that: in order for supreme executive power to derive from a mandate from the masses, a well informed public must be capable of removing from power people who do not represent their way of thinking.
This is a measure that erodes the idea of consent of the governed and places power into the hands of the boards and executives of telcos and the White House and takes it directly from you and me.
It is evil. It is as purely and simply evil as anything else that's purely and simply evil. Some people broke the law. Some of those people were in power. Some of them were in industry. The people in power are now trying to pass a law that means that, before a trial, before anybody knows, before the press looks into it, before the courts get a crack at it, before this flagrant flouting of our nation's laws is brought out into the light of day, it will be buried forever.
That's what this law is about. It is about taking away the accountability of the government.
You might not care. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all - you've got Liam and Mark and Daddy to worry about and a host of other things.
I don't know that McCain is such a bad choice, I only know that the only presidential candidate who actually voted against the law was Obama. There are a lot of other factors to consider - everyone on the ballot is an imperfect instrument of my will, with plenty to complain about - but I'm more likely to vote Obama than I was and less likely to vote McCain than I was as a result of this.
Like the DMCA, I'll not forget this and I'll always want it removed. If I ever get to lobby Congress, I'll ask them to strike both. They are both evil.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | February 14, 2008 5:32 PM