Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 83 Editor's Choice: 1
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karrsic @ page 35
[Read the article: Keith Olbermann's reply and Obama's secret plan to protect the rule of law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for publishing Feinstein's letter. IANAL, and have only read big chunks of the bill itself, so this is mostly a note hoping to call attention to your question, so the better versed can address themselves to it.
Roughly, though, Feinstein's argument is "This bill is better than the piece of shit we were panicked into passing last summer. Therefore I refuse to ask whether it is in any respect an improvement over the original FISA that would return into force when the 'Protect America Act' lapses."
It isn't. There's only one, possibly two 'protections' here that weren't in the original FISA.
One is slightly stronger exclusivity language, designed to explicitly cut off the Administration's lame argument that the Authorization to Use Military Force overrode the original FISA exclusivity. It is a cosmetic change at best, since as Glenn has explained at length, the AUMF argument would be laughed out of court. Specific language (as in FISA) always trumps broader language, to say nothing of trumping the vague unstated penumbrae the Bushies pretended to find in the AUMF.
Second, it seems (I believe the good Fein*, the Senator from Wisconsin, has referred to this) that the original FISA didn't prevent wiretapping of US persons who happen to be located abroad. This bill doesn't prevent that either, of course, but it does prevent "targeting" such persons. If you've got a basket warrant, and they happen to fall in the basket, then they weren't "targeted", all bets are off, and it comes down to the minimization procedures.
Since the bill sets out no minimization procedures, leaving that up to the Executive to propose to FISA in secret, there's no way to tell whether this second advance constitutes any actual improvement at all.
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Whither the spine?
[Read the article: Keith Olbermann's reply and Obama's secret plan to protect the rule of law]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree that we have to keep right-wingers off the bench. But as long as the Senate remains Democratic, McCain would have a very difficult time pushing through another Scalia or Thomas. We'd probably wind up with another O'Connor or Kennedy.
That makes me wonder if you've been paying attention to McCain or to the Congress the last seven years.
In the first place, McCain is not going to nominate another O'Conner or Kennedy. He has surrounded himself with neocons, gone on a quite public jihad against habeas corpus, voted for several imperialist laws that Kennedy and O'Connor slapped him down for. He will be a pawn of the neocons in most things. He'll be even more so in the appointment of judges, which GOP presidents by long tradition have regarded as a harmless little arena whose primary purpose is to mollify their base.
Secondly, look at the margins by which the FISA abomination is passing, and the large number of sitting Democrats who refused to filibuster Alito or Roberts. And consider the obvious: if McCain wins, the instant Washington consensus will be that it was because Obama was far too bold and confrontational in his leftism, and the Democratic majority will be toast unless they move with more than deliberate speed even furthr than ever to the "center" - as defined by Alito and Roberts. They will rubber stamp whatever fascist the new White House counsel (who will be Addington, as likely as not) recommends to Saint John.
Feingold and Dodd and Boxer have at least delivered us from the bitter irony of having FISA pass just in time for Independence Day. The fat lady has not yet sung, and it's fine to keep pumped up and manning the phones while any hope for killing the bill remains. I intend to do just that.
But if we lose, it's on to the next fight. And the next fight is most definitely not punishing the weak kneed Democrats by handing the reins to the monarchists for the next thirty or forty years. Trust me, it won't be satisfying to see the dismay on the faces of Reid and Hoyer and Pelosi (and Obama). Because the dismay will last for a couple of weeks, but the soul-sucking timidity will last for four years. And McCain's regime will not be punishing the Vichy Dems. They don't care anyway. It will be punishing the Feingolds, Dodds, and Boxers. Not to mention the Jeffersons, Madisons, and Adamses.
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Can the ACLU force Bush to veto this bill?
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A question for Glenn, or other lawyers here.
In the section of HR 6304 which attempts to strip state courts of all civil jurisdiction over these wiretaps, we have this culminating clause:
(d) Application- This section shall apply to any investigation, action, or proceeding that is pending on or commenced after the date of the enactment of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
Is it possible for the current plaintiffs to lodge a suit in state courts before July 8, and so slip out from under these prohibitions? If they could, HR 6304 would surely permit that suit to proceed, presumably on to discovery.
I'm guessing the state court would dismiss, on the grounds that the complaint was already being litigated elsewhere. If so, would it still be possible for the ACLU and EFF to drop the federal suit, and still get an unforbidden action into the works?
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So "other" includes at least eight other issues
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it kind of cheering that 28% of the public are so uncorraled by what their TV is telling them are "the issues", that they don't agree with any of the standard top five.