For Fear Of Fear – Part One
It has been an exciting and fascinating two days, yesterday and today. It has been the best, and worst, of American democracy in action. The thrill of victory; the agony of a weak defeat, snatched from the strong jaws of victory. Yesterday we were giddy with the knowledge that the Democratic Senate Leadership had actually stood up, not just to the Bush/Cheney/Republican cabal of maximum everything in wiretapping and privacy invasion, but in the name or the Constitution and righteousness. Today, reality came crashing back down to earth for those of us in the reality based community.
Yesterday, the Senate led by Harry Reid and the Democrats fought off cloture and a vote on the contemptible Jello Jay Rockefeller crafted SSCI FISA Update Bill that, in addition to other ills, provided immunity to Dick Cheney, George Bush, other Administration malefactors and, as somewhat of an afterthought, participating telcos. That was a good thing. There were already whispers and scuttlebutt of a "brief extension" of the truly contemptible Protect America Act. As I have argued for some time now, there are inherent problems with such a "routine brief extension".
I repeat what I said yesterday on this “brief extension” nonsense. It is nothing but sheer political posturing that brings us down to the level of the Repuglicans AND weakens our case at the same time. Take a stand for the proper principles, and stand behind them as opposed to injecting harmful BS for the sole sake of cornering your opponent; which is a fine and appropriate tactic, if it doesn’t undercut your core principle in the process. Here, it will weaken the core principle and argument in it’s favor and should NOT be considered; especially since it is not necessary “to protect us” in the least, and blindly saying that it is so necessary is ridiculous.
NO EXTENSION! There is no need whatsoever for an extension, because A) The Administration can order any comprehensive program, or programs, they want prior to the lapse of the PAA and that program(s) will stay in effect for one full year “to protect us”; and B) the original FISA law is reinstated. Furthermore, passage of any extension is a wolf in sheep’s clothing because is equitably removes and/or weakens many arguments and defenses that opponents, like us, to the PAA had from it’s original passage in August 2007. At the time of the original passage of the PAA, most congressmembers voted based upon false and misleading facts provided by the Administration, McConnell and Hayden; voted under a false fear that the country was in jeopardy of an imminent major attack (another direct lie), were not aware of the secret memos produced by OLC behind the Administration program that were legally indefensible, etc. If we now vote to extend the PAA, we not only effectively remove and/or undercut all those germane defenses/explanations, we also give credence to the position that there is some merit and legality to the PAA. There is absolutely no need for an extension and passing one weakens our side’s position. THERE MUST BE NO EXTENSION. (lame grammatical errors in original corrected)
Today we didn’t get what I had feared, we got worse. Thanks to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and the usual cast of nefarious Republican characters, Congress has agreed to a fifteen day extension of the horrendous Protect America Act, thus weakening our defenses and objections to the despicable and fraudulent tactics by the adversary that produced it, and they didn’t even grab a political advantage in the process. The worst of both worlds, so to speak.
Marcy has been in Washington DC doing several things, representing all of us admirably, and is now traveling home. She may, or may not, post tonight, depending on her schedule. I wanted to get this up so that the able bodies indigenous to this blog had a thread to discuss, and work toward remedying, what has transpired. Depending on Marcy’s posting and a couple of personal time factors (in case you haven’t heard, there is a lot going on in Phoenix currently), I will post a more thorough and fact filled sequel. In the meantime, have at it; we need your input and help. Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said that we "have nothing to fear but fear itself". Today, we once again flinched in the face of falsely injected fear of fear.
UPDATE: Via Jane, Russ Feingold explains one of the other critical core problems in the two proposed FISA Update Bills.
I’ve given up on these jokers, and turned to the NE Patriots for solace.
When did the vote or UC motion occur, I’ve been watching all day for it…?
Thanks BMAZ! So will this bill or the next scuttle the discovery process? (which is what this is all about)
The extension apparently agreed to does not affect the civil suits currently pending, which are likely our best shot at discovery of the root wrongdoing and illegality of the Bush Administration on wiretapping, data mining and other snooping. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) bill crafted by Rockefeller, Bond and Cheney (Addington) includes a rather complete retroactive immunity provision that will not only shut down discovery in said civil suits, it will result in dismissal of the suits and preclude any other such suits. Regardless of what it is attached to, the immunity provision will do exactly that. Now, although we have focused primarily on the immunity issue for this reason, there are certainly other odious provisions as well in both of the proposed FISA Update bills, the SSCI version aforementioned and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) version, that strip the FISA court of much of it’s oversight jurisdiction and power, as well as permitting vastly more invasive and pervasive powers to the executive branch to spy on and monitor us.
The issues of shutting down discovery and dismissal of future suits has got to be YELLED in the media. Any ideas of how best to do it? Lot’s of letters to the editor of local papers in addition to flooding everyone offices with mail?
We really need to sharpen our response. I’m so inspired when I think of DC in 1963 or maybe October 1969… Inspiration aside, there has to be a way to continue messaging on this. Geezy, when a former legal counsel to the CIA is opposed to the language for retroactive telecom immunity and additional powers granted to the executive office in the language of the bill, there is a problem.
Excellent points about MSM imho.
One thing we (FDL) used to a lot of was sending in questions/comments to the WaPo’s political chats. We felt that if we sent in enough questions/comments on any one topic, it was more likely that they would actually publish (and respond) to at least one. AFAIK, NYT’s does not have anything this direct. Also, (not that I would ever encourage anyone to be anything except very direct), if you sound like a conserative, you usually have a much better chance of getting a response. Anyone who is interested, you don’t have to wait for the chat. You can use the link I provided, they usually have at least one political chat during the work-week.
I could not agree with you more bmaz. If Reid had stuck to the 30 day extension, he would have had a tactical advantage because Bush would have been forced to either veto the extension or let PAA lapse, showing the entire country what a dishonest, duplicitous game he has been playing. Instead, Reid managed to give Bush cover and deal a severe blow to opponents to this execrable legislation. In principle, Reid should be representing the opposition. Once again, the Dem Leadersheep have shown themselves to be the Rethug sheep in tattered Dem clothing that they have repeatedly shown themselves to be. It is not at all clear to me, how we will prevail 15 days (or sooner) from now unless the Dem leadership steps up to the plate. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Harry ought to tell them we’ll revert to the old FISA bill because it is Constitutionally legit. No further explanation or argument needed. If the republicans would like to bring forth a new bill that is legal, he’ll put it on his calendar for October.
I agree with bmaz & Loo Hoo. Harry should announce that this whole FISA debate is keeping us from working on other important business such as the looming economic crisis, and the old FISA bill (plus the automatic extensions already written into the despicable PAA) are enough to keep us safe until the next Congress.
Bob in HI
They should just go home.
Ain’t that the truth.
Since Bush makes his own laws anyway with signing statements and pixie dust sprinkled lightly on executive orders, what possible difference would it make? Besides we can use the money we currently spend on Congress’ salaries, benefits, and travel to pay down the debt a smidgeon. And then, our fine Representatives and Senators can see how much fun it is to get their own health insurance (especially if they have pre-existing conditions).
(Sorry for the cross-comment with Jane’s post, but:)
Harry’s not on the side of the angels on FISA/PAA. Barring some secret soul-shaking conversion, don’t expect him to do more than he must.
We should write, call, Fax the Dem caucus and demand they remove Reid and Pelosi and put someone in their place that has some balls.These two clowns need to go. bmaz how do they decide who holds these positions? Its been 30 years since I studied political science
Generally, committee assignments are made by the respective caucus leaderships; I think each has it’s own variation from there as to how the committee majority and minority pecking order is determined.
Bmaz –
Just as I have no difficulty in understanding what your points on the legal implications of the expiry of the PAA in the absence of a New Improved PAA With Flouride Riboflavin and Aspertame, I think what most disappoints me here is the absence of any signs of real intelligence and sufficient interest to have at least READ the frickin’ bills on the part of EVERYONE actively speaking to this issue in the Senate.
It’s clear to me that Dodd and Feingold know what they’re talking about, but with all the shit that’s been shovelled since they last spoke they might as well have left the planet. I know both Clinton & Obama have the intellectual capacity to understand the issues and no lack of guts but neither has made any brave move on this after going to all the inconvenience and trouble associated with actually showing up for work one day for a few minutes.
I know that Sen Whitehouse has an understanding of what’s happening here [although it’s probably a bit painfully slow and convoluted to sit thru], but for some reason he’s signed onto some Upper Class Twits idea so doomed and filled with irony and morony that Specter has fallen in love with it, so I’m not sure if all his neurons are still lined up properly.
But other than that – and despite Reid’s citing both McJoan at the DKos “Big House” and Christy at sister FDL – the folks actually doing the talking on the floor EVEN ON THE DEM SIDE OF THIS DEBATE are sounding and reading
From Wampum:
This is a great resource! Thanks so much! I’d love to see some Dems do a public information session/round table with the authors to cover these points. This one-two punch of privacy along with the breakdown in balance of powers concerns should be enough to make any citizen want to do something…Get KO and/or Bill Moyers to come to George Washington University and he/they, along with Jonathan Turley, could head up a round table with the authors…Could EW, the Lake, Glenn and all perhaps create a “public” event?
Saw the tail end of Dorgans speech and the Senator from Ohio about trade deficit. Now that is what I’m talking about! why not have someone with some foresight run the house and senate.
Glenn Greenwald has a new post up, and this seems to be the bottom line:
There’s much more, though.
Bob in HI
[Oops – got too worked up and my tail came round and hit the “submit” button]
ignorant and ill-informed and pandering and stupid and – the result, as you have it correctly, is that after several days carrying the fight to them in this political trench warfare, winning all the skirmishes, we are no able to state with great confidence that yes, we have lost, and definitively so, and the enemy across the aisle have suffered modest to no casualties and have time and their zombie like single mindedness on their side and so will soon overrun all our positions and … that’s it.
Maybe I’m getting old. No, that’s not accurate; I AM getting old. But I remember during Watergate that a whole whack of Dem senators knew that they didn’t understand the situation well enough or would hurt the cause and they deferred to those who DID understand and could perform.
Reid is of that most painfully inept group that in fact IS like Neville Chamberlain – he thinks his lead position and ‘good heart’ means he is the one who should decide and lead and say when to fight and when to flight. It’s those like Reid who lose confrontations of all categories: armed conflict, arguments over principles, and football games. IMO he embodies two images:
[1] why WWI was the end to trench warfare [except in the US Congress]
and [2] that old saying: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It’s like Glenn said – it’s not just the telecom amnesty issue – it’s all the new powers that have been granted.
Just wait until they get a load of a Democratic President with all these new powers. They’ll change their tune so fast it will make your head spin.
I’m not sure of that.
I think the damage which the Cheney-DNI McConnell-Senate McConnell types intend will have been done before any Dem president takes over the controls.
I think the key here is a court-enforced wormhole into the land of Google and Mozilla Firefox, a land to which DNI McConnell and DCIA Hayden were denied entry and now wish to use the courts to invade.
And once that bunch is in, they’ll never leave.
It seems to me that the entire narrative of the Position of Forces of the Left has been that telco immunity is “amnesty” for Cheneybush crimes.
Well, no such immunity is certainly going to be a boon to historians and a boom to civil liberties litigation professionals [Not that I’m not grateful], but there’s no jail time for Bushies at the end of that rainbow.
It’s entirely possible that the dominant narrative of telco immunity has been the intended or combination fortunate/intended consequence of manipulation by the likes of Ed Gillespie and the other Glorious Heroes of the Telco-RNC-winger-establishment media-neoncon Front.
The telcos learned from Hoover: if you have ‘em by the balls their minds and hearts will follow.
And the telcos HATE the Google Kids and Open Source and Free Music Downloads and Generation Y because they don’t understand – – like they didn’t understand rock and roll and Elvis.
It’s part of the circle of life: new generation with fresh ideas enters brashly on stage on motorcycle with surly defiant sneer or on stage with long hair and babes throwing them their panties and room keys and Old Prudent Types get together and confer –
and the next think you know, Pat Boone is singing Race Music and EMI et al have exclusive contracts to produce and sell all the records.
The oldies and fogies and RNC got together at the “Foundry” and figured out how to take over the hot new communications front: the Tubes.
“I think the key here is a court-enforced wormhole into the land of Google and Mozilla Firefox, a land to which DNI McConnell and DCIA Hayden were denied entry and now wish to use the courts to invade.”
I think this is a critical issue, which relates to Net Neutrality. As long as we can keep net neutrality, there is hope for democracy. If we lose that, however, we will lose everything. Big brother will be on your computer before you know it, and you will lose freedom of access. Heck, big brother is already on our computers, with these jerks at the helm. They just want more power to grab more of your short hairs.
Bob in HI
I think the key here is a court-enforced wormhole into the land of Google and Mozilla Firefox, a land to which DNI McConnell and DCIA Hayden were denied entry and now wish to use the courts to invade.
Astute point.
The oldies and fogies and RNC think they’ve tied up the Toobz, but they’re going to end up with a Tar Baby. They don’t understand the culture well enough, and the current economy is too moth-eaten for even Google to save their business model at this point.
—
I’m discouraged, but I’m not quite ready to write off Harry Reid quite yet. And I’m certainly not writing off Dodd, nor Feingold, nor Durbin. But agree that other Dems need to feel citizen support.
cboldt thinks Harry just passed the 15-day PAA extension all on his onesies.
After re-listening to the recording of the end of the evening, I think cboldt is right, the 15-day extension is a done deal in the Senate.
However Harry also decided to operate the Senate on Super Tuesday to make up for lost time. What if anything might that mean for which Senators will be able to be present and voting on Tuesday? Which side has more candidates, R or D?
Prior to reading bmaz’s fine post, I had just emailed my humble brain-storm of this to Jane and emptywheel. I admitted FDL might not be the appropriate venue.
I think there are people within the Telecom industry, who probably read FDL/emptywheel, who could ask, “does the government have your phone number and your email address?” That’s our counterweight to Cheney’s “all-terror-all-the-time, as far as low-information-voters are concerned” Finding traction in the MSM on this is huge imho.
I described yesterday’s “victory” as “last-stand-hill.” bmaz, phred, and others are absolutely correct, it was more of delaying action than a victory. I don’t mean to diminish, however, that it was by any accounting, a huge upset and accomplished over very great odds.
I think to turn it into a victory, however, we need to open up this new front against the “incumbent-protection-rackets.” Congress wants to slide this
dumb and dumber“too good to be true,” we can have ourcakecivil liberties cake andeat-it-toonever fear terrorism. Since that’s what Congress is selling, I think our best shot with the MSM at fighting this, is asking if the new solution will allow the government to have my phone number, email address?Bullseye.
Thank you, Bmaz for your excellent post.
Obama, Clinton, McCain. Can’t they vote in absentia?
Picture what would happen if they allowed that. Few Senators would ever show up! They’d all be home raising money – nonstop. What a sad thing to contemplate.
I think the problem is that our campaigns in the US go on for far too long. Maybe we need campaign reform – if that’s possible – in order for legislating to take precedence… as it should.
The immunity issue aside ( I wish Congress would heave it aside), I can’t escape the impression that the Members feel under great albeit unacknowledged pressure to codify language protective of surveillance conduct that the executive branch has no intention to cease.
The pretense by most Members of Congress of having only slight knowledge of the extent and technical facts of surveillance and related information processing is not merely unconvincing, it’s deceitful and harmful. True, secrecy and classification make it difficult to become an expert, but every Member has abundant resources for learning about information technology as applied to information gathering, and about the legal and personal implications.
I think that is true for some; but I think the vast majority of them really don’t know or understand diddly squat about this stuff, nor for that matter, what the Constitution really says and stands for. It is beyond appalling.
Agree.
Snark:
The Fourth Amendment in its entirety is just so tough to get all the way through:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
/Snark.
A parliamentary question: does passage of this bill mean that any new bill to extend the extension is de novo? If so, could Reid switch back to introducing the SJC bill? Will all UCA’s and cloture votes no longer pertain, and have to be re-done?
It seems to me that we’ve managed to delay this as long as we have because Dodd was able to run out the clock against deadlines. Short deadlines mean short clocks. Maybe it’s a good thing it’s a 15 day extension?
Just wondering aloud…
A little off the wall, but could we borrow a page from Grover Norquist? One of the many problems with secrecy is, who audits it? Ok, so some NSA types claim they’ve been working 80-hours/week listening to warrantless wire taps and illegally reading email. They want to get paid, why would I take their word for it?
Should have been “at lease once a day during the work week.”
Howie Kurtz does a media one on Mondays. Dana Priest usually does a Foreign Policy one on Thursdays.
Kind of in a general response to KLynn, Boo and everyone – Man, I dunno. Heh heh, I appreciate the faith, but if I have any skills at all, they are certainly not in innovative grass roots organization. I would defer to Jane, Christy and Marcy on that. I will say this, part of the process, as I discussed with Sedgequill above, has to be getting our elected officials better informed and engaged in this discussion. Quite frankly, to some extent, even if they are not on our side, getting them openly talking about it helps because it provides a forum for us to talk back and get the discussion out, open and notorious.
As to framing, I think a lot of this is just complex and hard to grasp. Crikey you can see it here and at FDL where the people are engaged and active; it is immensely more so in the general populous where that is not the case. One thought may be to paint it in terms of “immunity means secret powers deprive ordinary folks of their Constitutional rights and they can’t even go to court to complain about it”. Now that can probably be made a lot better; but I think somehow or another we need to steal the “it kills Joe Six Pack in the Heartland” theme that the Republicans have used so effectively in the past.
The problem is that what’s been “stolen” is something so abstract that people don’t understand they’ve been robbed. And “immunity” steals from them a second time, robbing a chance to hunt down the first theft. So it’s like taking away a microscope for finding the virus eating away at the Constitution and our individual rights.
We need an image here. To make it less abstract.
If you had a video, a cartoon, of microbes destroying the Constitution in the National Archives, specifically Article 4 of the Bill of Rights. And instead of solving the crime, they want to cover it up. No microscopes allowed. Just let the microbes keep eating away…. gobbling up the Constitution.
Best I can come up with at the moment. I’ll think on it.
“holes in security” – just seeing this latest comment @ 38. That could be woven in maybe.
Not a “content” based comment but an idea for EW and the Lake…
My 75+ year old parents are active and well informed members of their generation. They read the Financial Times and Washington Spectator and listen to NPR and NewsHour on PBS. They do not do reading on the computer any more because it is too hard on their eyes. After talking to them IRT FISA, they asked me for more information so that they could make informed calls and send “informed citizen” letters to their congressional reps. I extracted from here and the Lake. However, it would be great to have access to some information sheets (Q & A) with a print option that would lay out the FISA concerns in a simple and clear manner.
AARP is one of the largest lobbies in the US. They have been working tirelessly on identity theft issues on the federal level. Thus, my parents generation happens to be well informed about violation of privacy issues through AARP and are more than ready to receive more information regarding the need to protect rights.
Anyway, a Q & A or some type of information sheet with a second sheet that has letter writing “prompts” or points with a print option would be great. It could be added as a separate box like EW’s timelines and act as a “printable version” PR box regarding FISA.
I know, crazy idea… Not to mention, I have a number of moderate conservative friends who would never come visit the Lake or EW but would probably read an information sheet on my concerns regarding FISA. I would be printing these sheets off like crazy and handing them out to friends.
BTW, good morning bmaz… & EW (welcome back from DC).
Have you seen the FISA wiki set up by commenter karrsic over at
Glenn’s? It could be what you are looking for.
http://fisa.wikispot.org/Telec…..Front+Page
Thanks, that is a great resource.
I think you, emptywheel, and the other luminaries here, help the rest of us to keep up. Before we had access to your comments, a lot of us were in “trust us” mode, because we had no choice. We may not understand a lot (or even a little of ) the nuances, but we trust you and others to do the heavy lifting. Armed with what we’ve learned from you, the rest of us do the grass roots stuff, as best we can. With great gratitude to you and the others for all you have done to help Jane, Christy, and Marcy.
Slashdot points to an article on holes in security that will be created by the new architecture for the internets that PPA will create.
Great link, thank you.
We need more of these people to speak out.
I knew they were out there. I used to work with them.
This is a quote from the article in my 38, as, with my paragraphing for ease of reading:
Pretty interesting stuff there. I read it pretty fast, but I am still having a hard time understanding how these vulnerabilities are not there irrespective of the PAA/FISA Update. These are mostly hardware issues; the laws we are chewing over are legal and only involve the use of warrants, judicial oversight, immunity for past acts. etc. Under both necessity and previous communication reform legislation, the hardware stuff, you would think, would be there for the legitimate uses, which certainly do exist in this day and age.
More like that, BooRadley. (I have a brother Bradley.)
Framing 101…
Advanced Framing 201
The tools and pyschology of the Frame, from the Middle Ages
to Contemporary American Politics (Graduate work, taught by
Professor Feingold)
Russ Feingold 10 sec take on Jane’s last night is all the frame we need.
OT, but who is Plaxico and who gives a shit about his wild ass prediction?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01…..ref=slogin
As our sashay toward economic destiny continues …
U.S. Foreclosure Activity Increases 75 Percent in 2007
OT, but who is Plaxico and who gives a shit about his wild ass prediction?
Facetious much, BayStateLib? ‘Cause there really is a case that Plaxico’s been the subject of a lot of special planning by the Pats trust already this week. WR speed on a TE frame, outweighs pretty near every DB in the league by 30-40lbs and loves to run into/over people. But it’s a rare day when that much mouth is an even sortof ok idea, imo.
You’re right. I’ve got to control my trash-talking, Irish mouth
or I could be dealt to another blog…
Silly me, I thought you were talking about a blow up doll. Oh my gosh you are!!!!
And one more sop to monomania (it’s me b’day; I’m going to try to read poems or something with the rest of my free time):
High Percentage Entering Foreclosure With Negative Equity
These folks are at the mercy of state laws, which vary in whether they can be pursued for the overhand amount if it’s not recovered in an eventual forced sale.
Happy birthday, prostratedragon.
Roidney Harryson gonna give Plaxico Durress