Letters to the Editor
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Still no accountability
You're mistaken about this. The Supreme Court's ruling did have an effect on the Bush administration. They went to Congress and had their detention and interrogation scheme legalized in the form of the Military Commissions Act.
GG
Right, in other words, the Administration got its behavior validated and legalized. So there was an "effect". Was that progress or further erosion/abuse of the judicial/legistlative system? Did the Administration get away with its practices, regardless? Is the sky blue?
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a federal judge in California
I can already see the steam rising from the wingnutosphere over that phrase.....
But, on a more serious note, its clear that you favor taking direct action in order to improve outcomes and I happen to think that the telecom immunity issue is a vital one because of its reflection on lawlessness in government in general.
So my next quetion is qute simple. What would you like us, your readers, to do to help?
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Dounia
Right, in other words, the Administration got its behavior validated and legalized. So there was an "effect". Was that progress or further erosion/abuse of the judicial/legistlative system? Did the Administration get away with its practices, regardless? Is the sky blue?
The point is that they didn't just ignore the court ruling and say that they could detain and interrogate people even in ways that the Supreme Court said was illegal. Instead, the people's representatives in Congress -- with healthy participation from both parties -- changed the law to legalize their programs.
For reasons I have written about at length, the Military Commissions Act is disgraceful and dangerous. But it just isn't accurate to say that Hamdan had no effect. It did. But Congress decided to respond by legalizing the behavior which the Court said lacked legal authorization.
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Should the votes-go down on Fisa
with the Dems siding with immunity-and it all happens to just go along with the amount of dollars that particular house member had gotten from Telecoms-would that not constitute racketeering charges to be brought (that would be an obvious vote-selloff).
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the Administration got its behavior validated and legalized
Don't underastimate the importance of that.
If the administration had had its way, none of the current discussion would even be taking place. The whole reason the administration got in trouble in the first place was becuase they were unwilling to go to Congress and explain what they wanted from the Patriot act and the FISA rewrite.
They bypassed the debate and went ahead and broke the existing statutes. The fact that they've since managed to get the statutes rewritten in their favor is unfortunate but at least it happened in the light of day where we can actually have a debate on merits.
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sunlight
Works great as a disinfectant. Might take a little of the stink off Schumer and Feinstein, although I doubt it.
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Surely The Government will Use Every Legal Manoeuvre Available
I do not expect the Government to comply with this order prior to the passage of the FISA amendments - surely they can use some form of legal stalling tactics, a stay pending the hearing of an appeal, for example. Cynicism is appropriate here, Glenn.
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"Needless to say"...
For some of us lay-folk, it's too doggone confuting. Forgive many of us forweme-- sure dang-confides, and sure do-no-not know what we are trying to keep ass's A's, usa's, a damn a darn a toot-a-saying? O, No.
Needless to say, O, shush-up!
And A-okay, and try too hush,
O, ah, oh, huh-so-endlessly,
O, all thee-damn-it-grief, O,
O, the GOP-era, may soon end.
Needless to say, and I said it.
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Chasing the game
From the previous thread:
I would rather see an entire bill devoted to federal regulation and court oversight of data mining. A third law to go with CALEA and FISA. That would put an end to pretending that civil libertarians are standing in the way of a listening device glued to bin Laden's butt, when really what is being installed is a device to vacuum up the entire internet and phone system, and create endless suspicion lists, vocabulary usage lists, and link analyses of people who's connection to terrorism hasn't ever been established. I might also like to see a law stopping the revolving door between intelligence agencies and startups formed for the sole purpose of waiting out Congressional oversight on illegal or ill conceived surveillance projects. -- ondelette
First of all, I want to add my thanks to ondelette, Arne, et al. for their superb technical analysis on the previous threads not only of the origins of the FISA bill, but of the significance of its contents, and its likely effects.
When I look at it, though, what is of concern to me is what Representative Hoekstra has very graciously characterized as the political debate over the bill. This political debate has been disingenuous from the beginning.
It seems clear to me that even the original FISA legislation was an attempt at what in soccer is called chasing the game. (This occurs when a weaker side attempts to force a nil-nil draw by playing defensively. Once scored upon, though, they are forced to go after the ball in their opponent's half of the pitch. Given the stronger side's advantage in speed and ball-handling, this often leaves them more vulnerable, not less.)
J. Edgar Hoover may well have believed that there were commies everywhere, and both LBJ and Nixon clearly believed that domestic opposition to the war in Viet Nam was a genuine threat to U.S. national security. It also appears that all of them thought that surveillance by any means available could give them an advantage in pursuing policies they believed to be necessary. Those with executive power are always likely to believe such things, and the result of believing them is always detrimental to democracy.
The grim reaper put an end to Hoover, if not his files; LBJ was undone by the revelations of the Tet offensive, and Nixon's increasing paranoia, and reliance on omertà ultimately exposed what he most wanted to conceal. None of this affected the mechanisms of surveillance itself, however. When FISA was passed in response to the discoveries of the Nixon era, it was inevitably behind the technologies of the day, and vulnerable to the national security shibboleths which no one could bring himself then or now to disavow. It was a flimsy fence around an army of committed opponents of democracy, all armed with the latest wirecutters, and has remained so. Why else would Glenn be forced to remind us now and again that the FISA court has virtually never -- as far as we know -- turned down a request by the executive branch on constitutional grounds?
I respect and support all attempts to get as good a FISA bill through Congress as possible, but I also believe that ondelette is telling an incovenient truth here; the only truth, in fact, which should ultimately concern us on this issue. Until the American people truly understand what is at stake, and force Congress to stop chasing the game, and demand -- on pain of impeachment, if necessary -- that the executive branch disclose what it is actually doing, and plans to do in the future, it really won't matter a great deal what tarted-up version of the FISA legislation is finally adopted.