From 2001 upto 2007 FISA was amended four times, in line with the presidents wishes and his intelligence services requests. He himself said in 2002 that the FISA amendments, he had asked for, were essential in updating FISA and readying ourselves for the modern world realities of fighting a modern war on terror, he thanked congress and said his intelligence services now had all the tools necessary to prosecute the GWOT to its fullest and most modern extent. It was amended a further three times in order to 'tweek' certain covert intelligence gathering techniques. Then in 2007 - after six years of touting the fact that because we had not been attacked since 911 this administrations record on protecting the 'homeland' was a resounding success and the democrats were traitors, terrorist sympathizers and unpatriotic and only republicans could save us from superhuman jihadis hell bent on our complete destruction - a further large 'tweek' was necessary, hence the 'Protect America Act' was conceived, contrived whatever you want to call it and ejaculated onto the floor of the house with only minutes to spare and less time to read the damn thing.
It was another ruse, the Protect America Act was designed, by Cheney, to be a vehicle of amnesty and immunity for the telecom industry, the super-spying component was superfluous and could have been quite easily dealt with in another FISA amendment but that was not the point. After the PAA was brought to the floor the Democrats, in one of their less tremulous and feeble moments, blocked telcom immunity and sunsetted this abomination in six months. The republicans probably agreed to this thinking they could muscle the votes and manipulate the bill in favor of telcom immunity within the six month time frame. The PAA as it has stood for six months has probably done little if anything in protecting our nation from further terrorist attack as that was not its real intent.
Now the democrats in the house have defied their counterparts in the Senate and sat on this thing again, you see, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that if the president is unwilling to temporarily extend this vital tool of the intelligence community for a further 21 days while details of the telcom payola are worked out, then it can't be that vital in the first place and then to top it all off you have your director of intelligence going on TV and actually admitting that the whole thing was designed to provide immunity to our telcoms so they will comply with future requests from the government to provide the legal or illegal, depending on the preznits mood that day, services that are vital to our security.
That the telcoms have absolutely no choice but to comply to 'legal' government requests in the past, now and in the future is by the by. That they certainly knew that what they were doing way back when was illegal is irrefutable. How do we know this, because not all the telcoms complied in providing information under the administrations requests having run it by their legal teams and coming to the damning conclusion that it was most likely illegal.
Oh, those poor corporations being sued by the 'little people'. What they need is some big time, big government protection from the rabid masses and their unpatriotic lawsuits.
The real conceit here is that the PAA is like some huge, absurd witness protection program for AT& T and Verizon, they are known criminals but because we undoubtedly will need their cooperation in the future we are willing to overlook the crimes they committed willingly and got paid for and offer them immunity from past and future prosecution, regardless of the fact they will have no choice but to cooperate.
Our country is being run by miscreants and liars...
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3 comments:
The Protect America Act was necessitated by an unelected, unaccountable FISA judges' ruling that a phone conversation or email betweentwo foreigners, both located on foreign soil, but routed through American pipes requires a FISA warrant. Is it any wonder that the President wants as little to do with that boondoggle as possible?
New legislation became necessary just to preserve the status quo. The judges' ruling extends American rights to non-Americans not even on American soil. If it were not for the fact that some of them are trying to kill us, it might be a nice idea.
Your post is unusually fact-challenged, even for you. The telcos can refuse to cooperate with government requests, as Quest did. Joe Nacchio calculated, correctly, that the government couldn't be counted on to keep its word, and that he would be opening up his shareholders to billions of dollars worth of junk, class-action lawsuits as Congress or judges retroactively criminalized the service the telcos provided for their country. Service, by the way, that they were NOT paid for.
What happened to simple fairness? There certainly was no criminal intent to the companies' behavior, nor did they profit. They just chipped in at a time of need to try to save lives. It's just sad that Pelosi and co. are so in thrall to the tort bar that they wouldn't even let this bill come to a vote, where it would have passed easily.
I hope the President beats them to a bloody pulp with this.
Probably the same FISA judge who has never, ever turned down a surveillance request by our intelligence services as long as it was warranted.
As for 'fact challenged' you should know all about that shouldn't you considering the blather you have foisted upon my site over the years.
If they were just 'chipping in' in a time of need why would they stop the ongoing operations that are so vital to our security when the FBI didn't pay their bills. It was front page news but, somehow, you must have missed that. Guess they didn't mention it on Faux News, terribly unpatriotic and all that.
Telcos can not refuse to cooperate with a government and FISA court sanctioned operations, it's the law. The entire premise that telcom immunity is essential in ensuring cooperation in the future is a pack of lies. The telcos will certainly not be so willing to cooperate in the future if they know that the government has not followed long standing procedures and gained the necessary approvals, it's called the rule of law. It's what they neglected to do in the past and it is why the PAA exists in its form today and why it is being rejected. If they broke the law, even if coerced by this administration, they should be tried in a court of law, period.
This government and the large corporations feeding at the trough of the GWOT cannot be trusted anymore and that is what it is all about. Your strict adherence to ideology has inhibited your ability to reason clearly. You contradict yourself constantly and make arguments that are unsubstantiated and flimsy at best, but it protects your peeps and that is to your detrement as a serious person. I see both sides and make my decisions based on what I see as what is best for America, you only care about what fits in to your corrupt Luddite view of the world.
Expand your mind brother, you're becoming very one dimensional and frankly, that is not only boring but primative.
The problem is that the telcos will refuse to cooperate in surveillance without a FISA order, even where none is required. The net effect of this is to throw sand in the gears of intelligence gathering. Why is that desirable?
As I understand it, and as every court who has ever ruled on it says, the President has sole, plenary responsibility under the constitution for foreign intelligence gathering. The founders envisioned no role for the judiciary in this function; and for good reason.
This is a democracy, and the people elect their leaders to take responsibilty for national security. As the founders envisioned it, our leaders need to be accountable to the voters on this most crucial of issues.
This is a key point: Congress cannot enact legislation that overrides the Constitution. If the constitution gives inherent authority to the executive to conduct foreign surveillance (it does), Congress cannot restrict that.
FISA constitutionally overreaches when it's applied to non-Americans on foreign soil, or even to Americans on foreign soil. When Congress enacts a statute that purports to restrict the President's constitutional authority, it is Congress who is trampling the constitution, not the President.
Understand this point. It’s crucial. The president has a right to ignore the FISA statute if it conflicts with the higher duties that are assigned to him by the Constitution. The president has an obligation to safeguard the American people against foreign attack — including strikes ordered by al Qaeda supervisors overseas, who give direction to terrorists embedded here, as they did in the run-up to 9/11. You can argue that he has overstepped his authority. You cannot credibly argue that he is without a colorable basis for doing so.
This is politics, pure and simple. A few Democrats are willing to go to great lengths to attempt to inflict political damage on the President. It makes his poll numbers go a little lower, and let's face it, most Americans haven't got a clue about the constitutional ramifications.
This is truly reckless brinksmanship, and I imagine that this sort of behavior is exactly what has prompted so many to wish for a change in the way Washington works. Although I wonder whether they realize it's their own party that needs to change.
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