Fight FISA

They were passed even as we in the Democratic party...activists we are called...were fighting back.

We were ignored.

They paid no attention at all.

We went to Iraq, the terrible bankruptcy bill was forced on us, the press conferences on the trade deals were held before the labor friendly Democrats even knew about what was happening.

Now FISA immunity is being forced through for no reason. It could have waited until we had a new president. There is no real reason for this to be happening now.

Again, we are as a party doing what makes the right wing 25% happy. (Actually it is less than 25% now) There is no listening to the ones in our own party who are speaking up. Even at Democratic forums, there are people saying don't be alarmed...there is nothing to the FISA bill at all. We are making too big a deal, they say. Just because they can now legally spy on us for 7 days before getting a warrant...no problem. Give this administration a big pass on the war lies...no problem.

We are told not to be alarmed just because spying can continue even if denied by the court.

We are told not to be alarmed that none of the spying on us prior to this time can be prosecuted....or even questioned. It is done, it is over.

• H.R. 6304 further trivializes court review by explicitly permitting the
government to continue surveillance programs even if the application is denied
by the court. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire
appeals process, and then keep and use whatever it gathered in the meantime.

• H.R. 6304 ensures the dismissal of all cases pending against the
telecommunication companies that facilitated the warrantless wiretapping
programs over the last 7 years. The test in the bill is not whether the
government certifications were actually legal – only whether they were issued.
Because it is public knowledge that they were, all the cases seeking to find out
what these companies and the government did with our communications will be
killed.

Remember the rush to get the bankruptcy bill through? I will never forget this CNN interview which made me realize that our Democrats had the wool pulled over their eyes, just like before Iraq...supposedly. Just like now with FISA..supposedly.

CNN transcript

"SCURLOCK: Well, you know, if you the numbers, and you look at why people
declare bankruptcy and you look at why people are in debt, the only real
solution is to never go to the hospital, never get divorced and never lose your
job, which I don't I think is that realistic for most people -- and probably
never go to college.

...WASTLER: James, bang on Congress a little bit.
There was a big hearing...

SCURLOCK: OK.

WASTLER: ... this week
and everything. And they had all the big boy credit card companies come. Oh yes,
we promise, we're going to be more transparent with our customers, which is a
bunch of malarkey, quite frankly. I know you've been following it carefully, but
all of these banks have big lobbying organizations that help get their point of
view across in Washington. Is there any realistic chance that we'll get some
sort of change out of D.C.?

SCURLOCK: Well, I think the congressmen are
still sort of stinging from this bait and switch with bankruptcy reform where
they were told that if they passed the bill, about a year-and-a-half ago, that
all Americans would get this dividend in the form of lower interest rates. I
think they said it was $500 or $600 we were all paying because people were
gaming in the bankruptcy system.

And nobody has gotten a dividend check
yet and I don't think interest rates have come down. So and I think Congress is
very angry about this. And you have new -- the Democrats in charge of the
committees and oversight are they are really taking these guys to task.


Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been pushing this FISA bill with
immunity for ages. The "policy shop" has advised this issue be pushed. It shows
who controls the message.

PPI says Democrats should allow immunity for
telecoms


..."However, it makes little sense to hold up progress on
modernizing the FISA bill to punish private companies that responded to White
House requests for information. Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has done
yeoman's work as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to forge this
compromise, and offered an explanation of his support for an immunity clause in
an October 31 Washington Post editorial: "These companies were assured that
their cooperation was not only legal but also necessary because of their unique
technical capabilities. They were also told it was their patriotic duty to help
protect the country after the devastating attacks on our homeland."

In a
separate editorial for The Hill on November 8, former senator Bob Kerrey stated,
"We cannot hope to achieve such unity of effort (to defeat the enemy) if on the
one hand we call upon private industry to aid us in this fight, and on the other
allow them to be sued for their good-faith efforts to help."

In sum,
since the telecommunications companies had no way of independently verifying the
program's legality and were pressured by White House invocations of the national
interest, efforts to punish them fail to address the real cause of the problem.

This was from November 2007. It is obvious who got the attention of Congress.

They listened to their think tank instead of listening to the people of the party.

Now we are told to not be upset. Just like we were told after the immoral invasion of Iraq, just like we were told after the passage of the bankruptcy bill which hurts elderly and the sick. Just like we were told after the trade deals were passed.