MONDAY'S THE BIG DAY FOR FISA-- BUSH WANTS RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR HIMSELF, CHENEY AND THEIR CRIMINAL CRONIES

photo by Thurman Hart

Last night, over at Firedoglake, Marcy laid out where things stand now in regard to Bush's demand that the Senate rubber stamp his retroactive immunity for telecom executives (as well as for himself and Cheney) who illegally spied on Americans. The Republicans need 60 votes on Monday. There are currently a dozen shameful Democratic traitors who have been voting with them, although telecom bribe-taker Jay Rockefeller says he will switch back to the Democratic side on Monday. The others are:

Indiana's Evan Bayh (202) 224-5623
Delaware's Tom Carper (202) 224-2441
Hawaii's Daniel Inouye (202) 224-3934
South Dakota's Tim Johnson (202) 224-5842
Louisiana's Landrieu (202)224-5824
Missouri's Mary McCaskill (202) 224-6154
Maryland's Barbara Mikulski (202) 224-4654
Florida's Bill Nelson (202) 224-5274
Nebraska's Bill Nelson (202) 224-6551
Arkansas' Mark Pryor (202) 224-2353
Colorado's Ken Salazar (202) 224-5852

If one of these critters works for you, please call him or her and urge them to remember they're Americans, not fascists or communists and that they're supposed to be working for us, not for the GOP and not for high-spending criminal corporate executives. My guess is that the senators who are most persuadable are McCaskill, Mikulski, Nelson (FL), Inouye, and Salazar. You might also try one Republican if you live in Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter at (202) 224-4254.

A summary of Marcy's main points, which explains where we are and why it's important and where we're likely to be going next:

• Despite the Republicans' screams today about bipartisanship, it was their filibuster yesterday and their continuous obstructionism that have been preventing their colleagues' carefully considered amendments from getting a fair hearing.
• The Bush-backed Intelligence Committee bill gives Bush and Cheney immunity for breaking the law. No Democrat and no honest Republican should even consider backing this odious proposal.
• Clearly, the amendments will improve on the Intelligence Committee bill, produce a bill that the House will pass or that the Senate-House conference will be able to make work, and still ensure that America (if not Bush) gets what the regime says it needs: no limitations on wiretapping of foreigners in other countries.
• Jay Rockefeller has been putting his donors' interests over the Constitution and the privacy of American citizens; his agreement to come back to his senses Monday should be followed by the other Insider Democrats who have been collaborating with the far right.
• The Republicans are trying to prevent any real oversight over minimization-- the process by which the the Administration ensures that it does not collect or keep information on Americans incidentally.
• The Republicans are trying to prevent Congress from specifying that FISA as the exclusive means to conduct electronic surveillance--which is the only way to ensure the President-- even one less venal and more trustworthy than Bush-- follows this law.
• The Republicans are trying to make it easy for the government to wiretap American citizens while we're overseas.
• The Republicans are trying to make it easy for the government to use data mining and bulk wiretap techniques that don't require the government to select real suspects for their wiretapping.
• The Republicans want to give the telecoms immunity for breaking the law in 2004, when they continued to wiretap Americans for a period with only the authorization of the crooked, politicized White House Counsel, and not the crooked, politicized Attorney General.
• The Republicans' obstruction risks leaving us with limited surveillance when the Protect America Act expires in February.

Russ Feingold (D-WI) addressed Republican obstructionism this morning:

"The conduct of Senate Republicans yesterday was shameless. After weeks of insisting that it is absolutely critical to finish the FISA legislation by February 1, even going so far as to object to a one-month extension of the Protect America Act, they obstructed all efforts to actually work on the bill. Now they want to simply ram the deeply flawed Intelligence Committee bill through the Senate. They refused to allow amendments to be offered or voted on, including my straight-forward amendment to require that the government provide copies of FISA Court orders and pleadings for review in a classified setting, so that Members of Congress can understand how FISA has been interpreted and is being applied. If the Republicans succeed in cutting off debate on Monday, the Senate won't even get to vote on the amendment Senator Dodd and I want to offer to deny retroactive immunity to telecom companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration's illegal wiretapping program. 

“Democrats should not allow the Republicans to ram this bill through the Senate without amendments. Monday's cloture vote will be a test of whether the majority is willing to stand up to the administration and stand up for our rights."

Perhaps Reid is getting his spine back; although I'll believe it after I see it on Monday. He spoke at the National Press Club this afternoon and seemed to indicate that maybe, just maybe, he will finally stand up to the Regime on this and that wither Bush agrees to a temporary extension or there will be no FISA bill. Reid has the power to make this happen-- or not happen. Let's see him lead.

The president has to make a decision. He's either going to extend the law, or he will… which is temporary in nature, or there will be no wiretapping.   

We have worked very hard to try to come up with a way to proceed on this but it's up to the President. 

The amendments that were offered in the Senate … they would have passed. The majority of the Senate favored these amendments.  

They refused to allow us to vote on what we call 'Title 1' which is a procedural aspect of this, and then they never even dreamed of our going to the second part, which is the retroactive immunity.  Which is… there is real controversy over that and there should be a vote in the United States Senate as to whether or not there should be retroactive immunity. They won't give us one.   

So again, it's up to the president. He can either continue the present law for an extended period of time, we would agree to two weeks, we would agree to a month, and we would agree to a longer period of time than that.  

But it is up to the president. Does he want the law? It's up to him. 

If it fails, he can give all the speeches he wants, including the State of the Union, about how we've stopped things, if he does that, it's disingenuous, and it's not true.

 
As citizens it's up to us to support Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold and to hold Reid's feet to the fire and make sure our representatives know this is serious and they'd better do the right thing for voters, not for rich corporate criminals; the pressure needs to be kept up all weekend. Watch Dodd on the Senate floor this morning; he should be the Majority Leader: