TPM links to a Roll Call article on the Repugs astonishment and frustration that the telcoms are giving more money to Democrats than them, after all they've done for them as well, oh, the humanity.
Afterall, Rethugs manipulated the PAA to protect telcom ass with retroactive immunity, for crimes committed against the people they are supposed to serve and protect, and all the thanks they get is this. Where's the love, where's the money?
Meanwhine, LameDuck-Bubbleboy wants this excuse for a law passed ASAP or he's going to... do what exactly?
So, are we getting it yet, the Preznit allowed this vital law to lapse even when offered an extension, he then says it is vital that we protect the telcoms from frivolous lawsuits (since when has my privacy become frivolous, one may ask?) as they were only doing the administrations bidding legally or illegally, then the party that crafted this piece of excrement is blubbering because they are not getting the payback from the very people they are trying to protect. And where do you and I, oh gentle reader, come into this? We don't, it's not about us, the PAA was designed to protect AT&T and Verizon and Sprint not you and I. They could have changed the surveillance language in the existing FISA law, they chose not to because FISA could not be amended to protect the telcoms. It's a f***ing disgrace of a law and the republican party and it's leader are disgracefully trying to scare congress into passing it whilst bemoaning the fact they are not getting paid to do so.
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Just like the Republicans. Bringing a knife to a gun fight. Of course the telecoms are giving more money to the Democrats. They're the ones who are shaking them down. The Dems hold the whip hand. That's bad for business.
Let's get one thing straight. There were no "crimes committed against the people". What you have is a constitutional pissing match going on between Congress and the President. The President is protecting his constitutional prerogative to conduct foreign surveillance, as he is sworn to do.
What this all turns on is whether a phone call with a foreign terrorist on one end of the line, and someone inside the US on the other is considered domestic or foreign. And, incredibly, whether tapping a phone conversation between two foreigners, both on foreign soil, but with the call routed through US pipes constitutes "domestic" surveillance.
I imagine you can guess which side I come down on, but if Congress wants to have that fight, God bless 'em. What's not fair is to drag the telecoms into the middle of this. This is exactly the sort of government bullying that civil libertarians should be worried about.
A few members of Congress want to impose constraints on the executive's ability to conduct surveillance. Forcing the telecoms to face junk class-action lawsuits is simply a back-door way for them to make the president get a FISA warrant for any surveillance, even when none should be required.
The great irony here, of course, is that it's the President who is protecting the constitution. The President has sole constitutional authority to conduct foreign surveillance. FISA can't regulate that, and doesn't. It's only a ruling by a FISA judge about the aforementioned foreign-to-foreign call routed thru the US that has forced this stupid showdown.
So, it should come as no surprise that the telecoms are contributing to the Dems. They're just trying to cut out the (trial lawyer) mddlemen.
This is not a constitutional pissing match, crimes were committed, this administration does not want telcoms to be forced to explain exactly what went on, which, even in a closed court, they would be forced to do and the truth would be on the record.
Something very bad went down in '02-'03, something bad enough that the entire upper echelons of the FBI and the DOJ were willing to resign over it. It was not a national security issue it was something else promulgated under that guise and this administration does not want any one to know exactly what they were up to. You may harp on all you like about terrorists and foreign surveillance this battle is not about that, the PAA is designed to shut this issue up forever, to cover the tracks of an administration out of fucking control and mostly reasonable to assume by their reaction to this, breaking the laws of this land.
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