NSA, FISA and the Telecoms

First of all apologies for not posting much this week in Susan’s absence. I’ve been swamped at work, because the magazine where I work is going to press. So a lot of late nights all week.

Now, if you haven’t already, I recommend everyone read Murray Waas’s lengthy article about Gonzales and the NSA probes, posted at Huffington:

Senior federal law enforcement privately question the propriety of Gonzales receiving such sensitive information about subordinates being scrutinized in one inquiry when those same individuals were likely to be witnesses about alleged misconduct by Gonzales for the other investigations.

Meanwhile, the Senate has capitulated on FISA, granting the Telecoms immunity. The Democrats weren’t united, some of them were in the pocket of the telecoms [such as Rockefeller] and the GOP took advantage of that to get the bill passed.

Surprised? No wonder only 21% of the public approves of what the Democrats are doing in Congress.

Here’s what Senator Dodd had to say about it:

“While the President may think that it’s right to offer immunity to those who break the law and violate the right to privacy of thousands of law-abiding Americans, I want to assure him it is not a value we have in common and I hope the same can be said of my fellow Democrats in the Senate.”For too long we have failed to respect the rule of law and failed to protect our fundamental civil liberties. I will do what I can to see to it that no telecommunications giant that was complicit in this Administration’s assault on the Constitution is given a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Dodd is reportedly trying to block the bill…

UPDATE: If you’d like to thank Senator Dodd for putting a hold on the atrocious FISA bill, go here.

UPDATE II: Senator Pat Leahy excoriated his fellow Dems for brokering a deal with the White House.

UPDATE III: Senator Harry Reid, who also gets substantial contributions from telecoms, plans to push the bill forward in November. Reid is doing an end-run around Dodd, voters and the Constitution.

UPDATE IV: Salon’s Glenn Greenwald summarizes what’s happening:

Just think about what is really happening here. AT&T’s customers sued them for violating their privacy in violation of long-standing federal laws and for violating their Fourth Amendment rights. Even with the most expensive armies of lawyers possible, AT&T [one of Senator Reid's largest contributors] and other telecoms are losing in a court of law. The federal judge presiding over the case ruled against them — ruled that the law is so clear they could not possibly have believed that what they did was legal — and most observers, having heard the Oral Argument on appeal, predicted that they will lose in the Court of Appeals, too.

So AT&T and other telecoms went to Washington and — led by Bush 41 Attorney General (and now Verizon General Counsel) William Barr, and in cooperation with their former colleague, Mike McConnell — began paying former government officials such as Dan Coats and Jamie Gorelick to convince political officials to whom they give money, such as Jay Rockefeller, to pass a law declaring them the victors in these lawsuits and be relieved of all liability — all based on assertions that a court of law has already rejected. They are literally buying a judicial victory in Congress…

UPDATE IV: Who knew country singer Charlie Daniels was an expert on FISA? Daniels told Fox’s Cavuto, “we have to look at people’s email.”