Nick Liebham Takes On FISA Traitors While Charlie Dent... Punts

Barely a day goes by when I'm not on the phone with either a congressional candidate or one of their staffers. Yesterday my first call, at around 6AM, was from Sean Millan, the somewhat over-wrought campaign manager of rubber stamp Republican Charlie Dent (R-PA). He wanted to let me know that Charlie thinks Adam LaDuca is "an idiot." The Pennsylvania College Republicans executive director, LaDuca, has been exposed as a virulent racist and now Dent's campaign, in an hysterical "he said/she said" dispute is claiming he's not on their staff. I suggested to Millan that Charlie, already in trouble with Lehigh Valley voters for his complicity in energy policies that have led to $4/gallon gasoline (while he scarfed up $75,831 in "donations" from Big Oil), should denounce LaDuca's racism, sexism and homophobia and sound a little like a statesman instead of a 5th grader in a spat with a playmate. He said he'd e-mail me; still waiting.

But it wasn't just the Dent menagere on the phone spinning its shady relationships with seedy characters. I had some long conversations of a more substantive nature with Democratic candidates who didn't shun speaking about tough issues facing Americans. One was with a southern California candidate we haven't talked much about, Nick Liebham, who's opposing revolving door lobbyist/congressman Brian Bilbray in the northern San Diego suburbs. Across a broad array of issues Nick is a thoughtful and committed Democrat with an excellent chance to send Bilbray back to K Street. But the part of cour conversation that really got me going was his lawerly take on Bush's FISA legislation. I didn't have my recorder on but he told me he had said basically the same thing to Lucas O'Connor at Calitics a couple months ago and he sent me the link:

As somebody who has been a prosecutor and dealt with the 4th Amendment, I can tell you that this happened to have been the one amendment in the Bill of Rights that all the Founding Fathers could agree upon; that in order for the government intrusion there had to be probable cause signed off on by an independent magistrate that says you may have committed a crime. I find the entire FISA process to be constitutionally dubious. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be made constitutionally valid but I think that anytime you have wiretaps involved... that deals with an American citizen, you've gotta have a court sign off on it. The only question in my mind is whether or not that has to be done prior to there warrant being executed or whether or not there is some grace period. There is no doubt in my mind that the executive branch itself cannot act as both overseer and executioner (of warrants or wiretaps). That, I think, is constitutionally impermissible; I think it's a violation of the judiciary's proper role of interpreting laws.

As a former prosecutor [and] law clerk in the US Attorney's office in the Major Frauds and Economic Crimes section... I've never heard of anybody being given immunity when you don't know what they've done. It's not how the immunity process works. You don't say to somebody 'Whatever you've done, don't worry about it.'... It's unthinkable to me as a lawyer and as somebody who will have... sworn to uphold the Constitution that I could ever support that.

What a tragedy that Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer, both Democratic leaders who have received huge pay-offs from the telecom industry-- this year Emanuel was the #1 recipient of their bribes in the entire House ($49,950), even more than GOP telecom shill Eric Cantor ($34,200)-- led 105 Democrats across the aisle, most of them well-bribed by the telecoms, to join the Republican rubber stamps in passing this horrendous legislation.