Letters to the Editor
bystander
Published Letters: 1636
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Off Topic but too good not to share
[Read the article: The grave Iranian threat to world peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dodd, Blogosphere Wins On Retroactive Telecom Immunity (+)
by: Chris Bowers
Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 15:07:37 PM EST
In what is surely the biggest legislative victory for the blogosphere ever, it now seems that there won't be any new FISA bill as long as Bush is in office. Check out the Wall Street Journal's whining:
Senator Chris Dodd's Presidential campaign died with a whimper in Iowa. But he still seems to be dictating national security policy to fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill, and unless the Bush Administration is willing to fight, perhaps to the next President too.
We're told that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is saying privately he now won't attempt to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on the wiretapping of al Qaeda suspects. Instead, he'll merely support another 18-month extension of the six-month-old Protect America Act. Among other problems, the temporary bill includes no retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that cooperated with the feds after 9/11.
Well done, Senator Dodd. This shows, once again, that it does not take many validating voices or actions in order for our campaigns to make a difference in the national discourse, or on Capitol Hill. Dodd took up our call to filibuster retroactive telecom immunity, and now the FISA bill is dead because of it. We saw much the same thing with Bill Richardson and residual forces. Once we worked together with a high-profile Democrat, we were able to change the debate on Iraq in the Democratic primary. Maxine Waters did much of the same thing on the Ned Lamont campaign back in 2006, and Russ Feingold did the same on a timetable for Iraq in 2005. Just one or two high-profile, validating voices can allow a blogosphere charged campaign enough credibility to be taken seriously on a national level.
It is satisfying to read the Wall Street Journal crying over this. It is empowering to see one of our campaigns succeed. It is satisfying to answer all of those emails I received back in August about how the progressive blogosphere supposedly dropped the ball on FISA, and was instead hob-nobbing with high-profile Democrats at Yearly Kos. With clear campaign goals, a couple of validating voices, and excellent staff working as liaisons between the blogosphere and the validating voices, we can really make a difference in American politics. Let me also give a special shout-out to Tim Tagaris and Matt Browner Hamlin who worked on Dodd's Internet team. Without them, a victory like this simply may not have been possible.
Update: The ACLU is fighting for no extension at all. That would be an even bigger victory, if successful. More updates on their campaign when I have them. At the least, this is a victory on telecom immunity.
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I hear you, karrsic
[Read the article: The grave Iranian threat to world peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The terms of the existing law are not good. Were the ACLU to prevail in getting no extension, then the beast expires in February, doesn't it? You are WAAAY ahead of me on this, so you'd be in a better position to judge, but I thought an expiration would be a good thing, yes? It would be a small victory, perhaps, that at least allows the suits against the telecoms to proceed, wouldn't it?
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karrsic
[Read the article: The grave Iranian threat to world peace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like you, I'm going to wait until someone a LOT smarter on this issue than me weighs in.... I'm only going to offer that I don't think it's FISA that expires in February - and the real issue (?) is the 'modernization' of FISA by the Protect America Act.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071217-3.html
The essential tools provided by the Protect America Act will expire in less than two months, and Congress must act to keep our Nation safe by making these tools permanent.
It's my (perhaps, erroneous) understanding that it's certain provisions of the PAA related to wiretapping that sunset in February.
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Bebop'n jeepers!
[Read the article: McCain spokesman John King of CNN]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, Bebop, the "word" was good, and now you are relieved, and you're gonna make us all stinkin' nuts, if not just stinkin' crazy. I'm glad for you. Whew! Phew!
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shifting responsibility
[Read the article: The Noxious Fruits of Hate Speech laws]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I might prefer a world without noise pollution. Racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, jingoistic [...] speech stimulates my amygdala in unpleasant ways. But, it should not the government's job to purify my auditory 'air' for all the reasons Glenn identified. I can find various trolls maddening, and I admit I make reference to Mona's articles of 12 step programs. But, I'm also appreciative of those folks who are willing to take those trolls on point-by-bloody-point.
For the government to accept the responsibility to police speech, is to relieve me the odious job of confronting that speech, personally. And, it could be said that I am free riding on the efforts of others here when they confront the more noxious trolls on my behalf.
The communal thought space is a communal responsibility maintained by the individuals who inhabit that space. There are resources available to individuals within the communal space to sanction racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, jingoistic [...] speech; reason, mockery, shunning are effective weapons. And, we see them routinely deployed over an array of message boards.
Short of prohibiting someone from yelling FIRE in a crowed theater - when there is NO fire - the government should not have the right to relieve me of my responsibilities to participate in a communal dialog. And, it should not have that right, simply because I could find myself on the 'wrong' side of the thought police, regardless of the object (religion, politics, or whatever) for those thoughts.
My behavior, which I might want to claim is in response to someone's speech, is also my responsibility, as it arises from within my own stimulus-response apparatus. The government is quite correct to limit my behavioral reach to the end of someone's nose. To assume that someone's speech will automatically incite me to throw a punch (or, riot), is to infantalize me. If I am insufficiently in control of my stimulus-response apparatus to speech, there is little limit to what the government can assume I am also incapable of managing.