Three cheers for Chris Dodd
October 19, 2007
Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd has vowed to put a hold on a Senate bill that reportedly would grant retroactive legal protection to any phone or internet company that helped with the president’s secret, warrantless wiretapping program, Dodd announced via email and on his presidential campaign website Thursday.
The larger problem, of course, is that bills like this are still being introduced even in a Democratic Congress. And they’ll continue to be introduced as long as the GOP believes it can extract some political advantage from security theater, and as long as there are enough Democrats terrified of re-election campaigns in which they are accused of not applauding sufficiently loudly at the end of the show.
We’re making progress, though. Witness Senator Feingold:
I was pleased, however, that two of the amendments offered by Senator Wyden and myself prevailed. One requires a FISA court order to target an American overseas. The other would ensure more meaningful oversight of the new authorities by Congress and the Inspector General.
Since these are the kind of amendments that would routinely be voted down when the Republicans were in charge, there’s obviously a huge difference between having 44 Democrats in the Senate, and having 51. There’s a long way to go before the damage done to our civil liberties during the Bush Administration is undone, but stopping the president’s proposal to grant retroactive immunity to the businesses (*) that went along with his (prima facie illegal) scheme to spy on American citizens is a good first step.
(*) Not all of the phone companies went along, despite (usually successful) attempts by the NSA to literally bribe them. According to the New York Times “the telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws”.
And according to an article in this week’s Rocky Mountain News, “the National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest.”
Stay classy, Republican Party.
October 19th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
I don’t think Qwest particularly cared about privacy laws. I think they had savvy executives who understood the potential for free, massive advertising as the “provider with a conscience.” We’ve got an example here of market incentives serving the common good–which inverts the Republican paradigm quite nicely.
October 19th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
What a bigger assault on your freedom this program or the over arching thing called Political Correctness? Hmm How about people wanting to tell you what to eat because it’s unhealthy or because they don’t like how it’s made? hmm how about people trying to tell you not to by a hummer or SUV because it ” hurts the enviroment”? Now tell me who is more about freedom the Dems or the GOP
October 20th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Kathleen: that’s certainly possible. But regardless of their motives, Qwest did the right thing in the face of a lot pressure, and at a time when standing up to the administration’s sweeping claims of executive power. So I think they deserve some credit.
Jason: since I don’t recall the plank in the Democratic Party platform about banning unhealthy food, nor the plank about banning SUV’s, nor the plank about what recipes I should use, I think a program under which the government taps my phones and spies on me without a warrant and without any kind of court oversight is the greater threat to my freedom.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:07 am
hmm how about Chicago Banning Fraugrau ( I’m not sure about the spelling) and New York Bannig Trans fats. There is also LA saying no more fast food Resteraunts in certain parts of the city. Those are all long time Dem run Cities. Thats what I’m talking about.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
Um, are you serious? Those are local public health and zoning issues, and, like smoking bans, they were non-partisan initiatives with divergent coalitions both for and against them. (New York’s mayor, as you probably know, is a Republican.)
I had never heard of the Chicago ban on foie gras — it wasn’t exactly a national story — until you mentioned it, which makes me think it’s a non-issue being played up in distorted form by conservative media (hi, Rush) to artificially create controversy and blame “liberals” for imaginary constraints on freedom.
I suppose that’s how they’ve gotta roll, if they want to carry water for an administration intent on subordinating all sorts of American liberties and constitutional guarantees in the name of a “war on terror”, while at the same time pretending their’s is the party of individualism.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
There are a laundry list of things the Dems have done To try and control peoples behavior those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head I get a bunch more examples if you want. I have yet to see one example of President Bush Spying on an American. Now if you don’t want us Spying on Terrorists I would like to know how we are supposed to find out about plots before they happen?
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
“I have yet to see one example of President Bush Spying on an American.”
So you believe he authorizes these things behind closed doors and doesn’t use them? If Democrats gave you evidence of this, would you believe them, or accuse them of playing politics with National Security?
“Now if you don’t want us Spying on Terrorists I would like to know how we are supposed to find out about plots before they happen?”
You spy on the terrorists. Democrats want us to spy on the terrorists. Democrats and Republicans both want us to spy on the terrorists SO MUCH in fact, that they set up FISA courts way way back in the 1970’s or something for the express purpose of guarding civil liberties and getting secure intelligence.
But Bush went around the FISA courts, not needing judicial or congressional oversight. That is the story.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Well it seems to me like they dont’ want us to treat this as if it’s a Job for the Military and instead law enforcement agencies. meaning they want us to wait until after a terorrist attacks us to do anything. I highly disagree with that. I think we need to go after these guys before they attack and that is why I think the foriegn Surveylence program President Bush had in place was good and necessary. I also still havn’t figured out why we need to give the people at GITMO US Citizen’s rights. They are unlawful combatants and therefore should be prosecuted as such through military tribunals.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Jason, do you really see nothing wrong with giving the president the ability (based on nothing but the president’s own say-so) to designate Americans “enemy combatants”, thereby stripping them of their rights without recourse to the American legal system?
October 24th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
“There are a laundry list of things the Dems have done To try and control peoples behavior”
That’s fine, but when it comes to taking away personal freedoms, this administration and those enabling them take the cake. I don’t think you can compare the right to goose livers and trans fats to the right to an attorney, the stipulation that my phone can only be tapped with an order by a judge, the right of habeas corpus, and the right to peaceably protest the government. I mean, I like donuts as much as anyone, but you are not comparing apples to apples.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:55 am
The whole thing I’m trying to get across to you is HE IS NOT DOING THIS TO AMERICANS!!!!!!!!!! The ones this stuff applies to is the people we have pickedup on battlefields in IRAQ and AFGANISTAN he isn’t just pulling people off the street in Chicago or Milwaukee. what don’t you understand about that.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:42 am
He’s not holding Americans without trial, except when he is.
October 25th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
eh my answer to that is we are at war FDR and Lincon did worse so in essence I say so what. don’t make terroist plots against my country and you won’t be treated as and enemy combatant
October 25th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
don’t make terroist plots against my country and you won’t be treated as and enemy combatant
Of course you’re guilty until proven innocent. Bringing the innocent to trial would be unfair.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
We have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of America’s great leaders, not only from their great feats, but from their mistakes.
Additionally, every one of the civil rights violations conduced by this administration has been done to Americans. Phone tapping, withholding attorneys, holding without charges, and arresting protesters have all happened to people living here, born here, and even to people with Anglo names and white faces.
October 27th, 2007 at 3:10 am
Well we are at war and if your a terrorist in the US making Plots to blow up building in the US you are an Enemy Combatant. If you are not affilaited with a country and wearing the uniform of that country you are and Illeagal Enemy Combatant so again I say So what. If you are an american doing those things you are commiting treason. once again we are at war folks. When it comes to the protestors were they being peacable if they weren’t there was reason to arrest them.