The Republicans and a depressing number of Dems (105 to 128 against) have passed an amnesty bill for telcos that gives them retroactive immunity for breaking the law by spying on Americans without a warrant or court oversight. Unsurprisingly, Republicans, who oppose such amnesty for immigrants, nearly unanimously supported the amnesty for huge multi-national corporations.

Obama, who supported filibusters of telco immunity in the past, opposes that provision of the bill but supports the bill itself since it restores FISA and ends warrantless surveillance. Harry Reid says he will try and get the immunity provision struck from the bill.

I support obama, but I disagree with him on this one. I would not vote for this bill. We need more senators like Russ Feingold who oppose bills like these and the Patriot Act so we still have some privacy left.

Not to pick on you Magnus but I can understand your viewpoint and I know many other people share the same viewpoint you do. However, This is the exact same attitude that allows the erosion of privacy to persist. Not that one amns opinion counts but many peoples do...That siad while I am a privacy advocate I do fully support the census...go figure.

I heartily agree. It's bad enough that we have Republicans embracing this kind of erosion of civil liberties, but we have an apathetic populace that has simply given up or remains ignorant.

The fact is that a majority of Democrats DID vote against this thing and they are fighting to restore oversight and accountability, which means that we have to encourage our representatives to listen to the public. The Dem leadership in the Senate wants to strip the bill of the amnesty provision. So while I understand the pessimism, there is still reason to hope.

The situation we are in right now is that we as Americans can be spied on at any time without a warrant or court oversight. We, and as you said especially you as a Muslim, can be declared an enemy combatant at the whim of the president. And if that happens, American citizen or not, you can be tortured and detained indefinitely in a secret prison. I can think of no circumstance in which such concentrated power in the hands of one person is justifiable in our country. Our civil liberties are supposed to be what defines America, what sets us apart.

So no, I'm not comfortable with that situation, even if the likelihood of it happening to me personally is low. The fact is that this is not some hypothetical situation. It's not about the future. American citizens HAVE been tortured and locked away indefinitely in secret prisons. This is nothing to be complacent about.

I can that, on this issue, I agree with you - as I've continued to do so. It's probably the one argument I get into with people where I rarely see eye to eye with people.

Um Hm. So the democrats prove they are just like republicans once again (another war funding bill passed by the House just recently). Who's going to protect our rights when people can't even sue the telecoms who knowingly broke the law? Who's going to demand accountability when the President and Co. knowingly broke the law as well? Where's the support for Dennis Kucinich's 35 articles? Just more proof democrats love to whine about Bush and his policies but when articles are thrust forth to get things moving they turn silent.

Not exactly. 99% of Republicans supported the bill but less than half of Democrats.

Btw, I was watching MSNBC and a commentator (I forget his name) basically said that the House would have caved a lot sooner on the FISA bill had it not been for the civil libertarian blogs and netroots. That's why the bill has been so delayed until now. So our voices DO matter, and there's still a chance for the Senate to do the right thing.

Well that's up for debate. There are MANY school of political thought on how the constitution should be interpreted, several of which involve a static constitution.

I am very disheartened by your thoughts on this.

Sadly, you and people who share your apathy make the work of restoring civil liberties harder because those who seek to erode those rights KNOW you don't care when they take them away.

Even the people who claim to support a "static constitution" ignore that when they want to do something that blatantly goes against it. (See Scalia's opinion on the copyright extension for the most blatant example)

To contast your fatalist apathy, I can actually give you real world examples in which the rule of law and accountability prevented exactly what you're talking about. In the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen was arrested, declared an enemy combatant, and held without charges or access to attorneys in clear violation of his Constitutional rights.

But thanks to the tireless efforts of those who DO care about civil liberties, Padilla was finally granted access to courts after three and half years in a military prison.

If it were up to you, he'd still be there.

Then there is the case of Hamdi vs Rumsfeld and the case of Boumediene vs Bush, both of which restore habeas corpus rights that had been revoked by Congress and the executive branches.

Some people didn't "get used to it" and managed to change the law because of it.

Won't it be nice to know that if this happens to you, someone who cares a lot more than you do will probably come to your rescue. I'm sure you'll tell them not to bother. You've gotten used to it.

Americans would have more sympathy for Jose Padilla if he wasn't any of the following: (from Wikipedia):

he joined the Maniac Latin Disciples street gang and was arrested several times.

He was convicted of aggravated assault as a juvenile when a gang member he kicked in the head died.

Hassoun was arrested in 2002 for overstaying his visa

By that time Hassoun had already been charged with perjury, a weapons offence, and other offenses.

Also, convenient of you to leave out that Padilla did end up sentenced to jail after courts, confirming Magnus's statement,"A piece of paper. It's not going to stop people from being put in jails."

Since when did being charged with a crime and then convicted of all civil liberties?

No one said Padilla was a saint, but now he actually has appeals, etc. and his conviction is isn't one of those that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This is like the NAACP and Rosa Parks, were you can wait around for a model person to try cases about the rights of defendants.

But I guess if you are convicted it doesn't matter if the government breaks the law.

That Padilla was guilty is not actually relevant to his civil liberties being violated, since those violations of civil liberties came before his trial.

And Magnus's position is one of apathy toward civil liberties, which would be different from people like you who actively want to take them away.

For the administration's apologists, all Muslims are guilty of being terrorists until proven innocent. And if you are guilty, you are not entitled to any rights whatsoever. They don't give two shits about the Constitution, just so long as the government protects their fraidy-cat pants-wetting asses from the mean ol' terrorists.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/2 ... 08963.html

Dodd And Feingold Will Filibuster Telecom Immunity

Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) released the following statement today in response to the announcement that the Senate this week will consider the compromise legislation that would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA):

This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called 'compromise' legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President's warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.

"If the Senate does proceed to this legislation, our immediate response will be to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans' civil liberties by opposing retroactive immunity and rejecting this so-called 'compromise' legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he will support Dodd and Feingold:

"Unfortunately, the FISA compromise bill establishes a process where the likely outcome is immunity to the telecommunications carriers who participated in the President's warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Reid remains opposed to retroactive immunity, which undermines efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for violating the law. Thus, he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor. "

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/0 ... es-to.html



Okay, how much more power does Pres. Bush have to allocate before the twats in the House start flocking to Kucinich's articles? The telecoms are continuing to be a part of surveilling americans to this day and Dodd is right when he's saying that immunity gives them a pass. That last line is baffling. The govt broke the law and just because wicked tricked out lawyers gave the OK doesn't make any of it legal.


Obama. Obama. He goes from being against it and threatening a filibuster to believing that so called national security against american citizens trumps the telecom immunity issue. A sign of things to come in his Presidency? He expects an IG to investigate and report to Congress on these matters faithfully. A middleman is going to be doing the duty of the Congress. How comforting.

It begs the question. If what they did was legal, then why do they need immunity?



He really dropped the ball on this one. Very disappointing.

Well Obama was not going to get elected if he stayed with his liberal views.

He has to be seen as a moderate so for the next 4-5 months he is a gun loving, suburban guy.

Not only would I disagree with that, I would submit that his new position on this issue does not help him at all with moderates or independents. Let's face it, short of an about-face, he's blown it on this one. I'm not going to throw him under the bus on this one issue as a) he's STILL better than McCain on FISA and b) he's right-on with so many other issues. As such, I don't think it's necessary to spin this as some sort of shrewd political move.

...Yet. If this is a precursor of things to come from the Obama campaign, then I'm worried. I really hope that this isn't any such thing.

I'd only worry if I were under the impression that Obama is perfect and that I'm going to agree with him on absolutely everything. But I'm under no such impression.

I would hope so!

I was addressing more of the pandering that is a the underbelly of his new position. I hold Obama to a very high regard at this point not because of his political views (on which he and I disagree quite a bit) but because he's the straight-talk express McCain is failing to be.

Here are the Senator Traitors within the democrat party. If they had voted Nay then the bill would have failed 50-47. Instead, we get Bill (H.R. 6304) which now circumvents your 4th amendment (it doesn't exist anymore) and immunes anyone that assists in the surveillance of you. Hooray for the traitors...Where's the rope??

Below are my two Oklahoma Senators. Inhofe vote is expected since he's hardcore pro-Iraq pro-Bush. I'm so disappointed in Coburn because he actually has a record of fighting against the growth of government and waste of funds, but his support of McCain and now this...

Coburn (R-OK)
Inhofe (R-OK)

Below are the democratic traitors as I mentioned. You see they'll pretend to be against things that are obviously against the Constitution so long as it benefits them but will jump ship when they feel the media will spin their vote against them as being weak on terrorism.

Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA) corrupt bitch
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT) fake liberal who plays both sides, very devious
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO) some actually suggest this person as a VP
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL) and he stabs his supporters in the back, and yet clinton vote's Nay...
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA) I actually thought he would have been a good VP. What was I thinking?
Whitehouse (D-RI)