The Frankfurter School

You need to understand what is going on in Congress with FISA.  Democrats and Republicans are uniting to pass legislation that will allow our government to spy on us without any oversight, and to give immunity to the telecom companies that helped them in order to keep details of the programs from ever coming out in court.  The only reason that this hasn’t already happened is that a coalition of bloggers, journalists, the EFF and the ACLU, have continued to raise hell about this insane assault on the Bill of Rights, and have mobilized a sizable constituency to write letters, call Congress, and run ads in key Congressional districts highlighting key Congressmen and their role in this travesty.  Each time, Democratic leadership in Congress has moved the goalpost, thinking that we all get tired of those nagging emails from moveOn or the ACLU, and that if they delay the vote we’ll stop paying attention.  They tried this tactic several times, but ultimately an amazing and committed group is growing more and more organized and committed.

Nixon used the FBI to spy on ordinary Americans.  All Americans, Democrats and Republicans, agreed this was bad so Congress passed laws in the 1970s to make this explicitly illegal.  Because the President kept using the threat of foreign operatives as cover to spy on ordinary Americans, Congress specifically established a secret court that could review classified information and give warrants for wiretapping in 24-72 hours, sometimes retro-actively if there was a really dangerous Russian spy that needed immediate action.  Thus the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed in 1978.  The act has been updated and modernized to keep up with technology, in the 90s, and again as part of the PATRIOT ACT in 2001.  The government has all of the tools it needs to do its job.  The failure of intelligence that led to 9/11 was not caused by us not having listened to the right things, it was caused by us not knowing what to do with the information we did have, and not taking it seriously at the highest levels of the administration.

The Bush Administration began spying on Americans and paying large sums of money to the major telecom companies to essentially vacuum up all of our telephone calls, text messages, emails, faxes, and browser histories.  We know that AT&T built a special room that funneled information to the government and allowed them to access anything they want at their pleasure without a warrant or any oversight whatsoever.  We also know that Qwest refused to cooperate because their attorneys deemed the governments request illegal.  When parts of this program were made public by the New York Times, and a coalition of civil liberties groups like the ACLU and electronic privacy advocates sued the telecom companies for violating their constitutional rights.  The Administration moved quickly to have Congress act to make their activities legal, and to give “immunity” to the companies that broke the law in complying with the administration’s requests.  Meanwhile, Congressional hearings were stalled and ignored by the Administration, using dangerous claims of executive authority to say that Congress does not have the right to investigate these activities.  The lawsuits became the only hope of forcing the telecoms to reveal the details of the program, which is why “immunity” was so crucial — to stop the lawsuits from moving forward at all and revealing the still-secret details of the Administration’s domestic spying programs.

The Administration and the powerful telecommunications industry have had a great deal of help from Democrats in protecting their illegal activities, covering their tracks, and allowing the United States to become just like the Soviet Union or East Germany in its abilities to surveil its own citizens without any reason, oversight or limitation.  The list of powerful Democrats who have helped try to pass the Bush/Cheney wish list include: Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Jay Rockefeller, Nancy Pelosi, and Steny Hoyer.

It looked like this issue was settled this winter when House leadership defied the Senate leadership and the Administration and in the face of threats and scare tactics, said the law was sufficient as it stood.  After that fight was “won” an amazing thing happened.  The Administration started looking for a “compromise.”   Yes that’s right, after we gave and gave and gave and held out for the bare minimum of protection we could solidly keep, after we were told that the any compromise on their full bill would cost us American lifves, after the battle was won, then the Administration started looking for new ways to win, and calling it a “compromise.”  And now they have found it.  And once again, they’re counting on us not paying attention.
TAKE ACTION NOW!

• CALL YOU CONGRESSMAN/WOMAN.  Say you’re opposed to warrantless wiretapping and you’re opposed to retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

• JOIN THE ACLU.  They are truly doing the lion’s share of the work here.

• JOIN THE CAMPAIGN AT FIREDOGLAKE.COM: they are leading the coalition of bloggers who are reporting on this story, because, big surprise it’s not being covered in the corporate press.

• GIVE MONEY.  See the link to the right of this post under “take action.”