Letters to the Editor
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@ Paul Dirks 10:07
Re: Clinton. What would you do if the entire Republican party is trying to bring you down with investigation after investigation and you have the power to get the telecoms to give you access to your opposition's phone conversations? Pretty tempting, huh?
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Resist clicking again and again
With Salon being slower than molasses this morning, it is easy to get impatient and click post a letter more than once. I believe that is the source of multiple postings.
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Where's the party.
Riviting. I watched Sen. Dodd in awe all day yesterday. Had to link c-pan here, once. (ty) - CNN123, MSNBC etc.ree, was devoted to staying on top of the Horserace/SnowStorm, I guess.)
Towards the end (6-8pm), I was tempted to drive pickup up to the Senate so Sen. Dodd wouldn't have to keep asking about the absence of a quorum(sp?). He seemed so lonely... But not alone.
When I am President, I plan on making Dodd a very trusted advisor. If not AG or Supreme Court nominee (if Dodd is not a lawyer, he should be.). His rebuttle of the Other Sides linguistic circus show 'talking points', re. amnesty/scope of surviellance, was excellent and complete. (*He used the Klein case concerning scope, I noted, and the Other Side went scurringly like rats.).
Speaking of horseraces, I think Barack has set his entire focus and energies a bit too exclusively on the White House in 09...evidently, like most of the contenders except for Dodd. As a fan of Obamas' (in no way imply endorsement), this has troubled me to some degree in the past. It's good to hear he was there in spirit, anyway.
hot dam,
bah.
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Does Limited Immunity Make Sense?
Mr. Greenwald,
As you have correctly observed, we have only bought time. We should stay mindful of the real objective here: full disclosure of the Administration’s illegal spying activity. To that end, perhaps a form of immunity of the telecoms might make sense. In our court system, immunity is only offered if the target is willing to come clean on all their criminal behavior and offer otherwise unavailable evidence of the culpability of those higher-up in the conspiracy. To that end, a bill could offer immunity to the telecoms if they provide disclosure of the full extent of their past and current activities in reports both to the Justice Department and the Congress (perhaps via the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC)). Now I know that Justice and SIC are unlikely to act upon this info during the rest of this Administration, but it would establish a complete record that can be acted upon after Jan/09. These reports should also be available to the judicial branch for relevant court proceedings. Reasonable provisions could be provided to secure classified sources and methods, to the extent they are legal. This immunity deal would have a further benefit of dividing the telecoms from the Administration in their support for the current bill. The telecoms only motivation is immunity; the Administration’s is a cover-up of their illegal actions.
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@ Bystander
Sharon (?) Brown - or, is it Sandra?
LOL! He does have rather nice curly brown hair, but Senator Sherrod Brown is indeed a he. ;->
And I'm glad to have him as the junior Senator from Ohio.
OT - in other signs of change in Ohio, the new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, pushed through a comprehensive review of all the systems used in Ohio in the last election. Results as expected - HUGE issues with security etc. Governor Strickland is backing an overhaul before the presidential election next fall. The usual suspects (Republican elections officials - aka Blackwell's Buddies) are making the expected whiny noises but are getting far less respect now that the bipartisan inspection results are on the front page of the paper for everyone to see.
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Dodd's allies
Before the 15 minutes of optimism is just about to run out-after which we will stay tuned to "Dodd's allies" for clues.
Is there a website that breaks down the House and Senate staff members ---sort of a Facebook/Political Almanac type for the staff? Are there staff photos on the Thomas.gov somewhere? I’d like to see the stats on these guys, like college affiliation, how long they have been on a Senator’s, Representative’s staff, what legislation they work on. Also, what they plan to do next if not politically attached to the Legislator to the point surgery would be necessary for removal-metaphorically speaking.
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The Debbie Downers of Democracy (h/t to Anonymust and SNL)
Now, we can all be prepared for the next Dismal Debbie (?) who claims nothing really good can come from blogging.
I've already been forwarding Glenn's posts to the DDoDs I know. They have gotten awfully quiet......Waa waa. :-)
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Understanding and communicating what is happening
It is important to understand why the Bush administration is pushing this amnesty.
From the Bushies perspective This is not a favor to the telecom industry, though they do benefit. This is about Civil Procedure and particularly the process called discovery. Now I am sure that for the lawyers reading this what I am about to say is pretty ho-hum, but for non lawyers it is worth understanding. I will avoid being too technical...
Discovery is the process by which defendants are required to produce documents, e-mails, memos and even testimony with respect to facts relevant to a case. My career has encompasses cases with 15+ million pages of discovery. The process works by submitting document discovery requests on parties, interrogatories and taking depositions. The lever is the private lawyer, the associate in big law firms, the partner. They get crucified if documents are withheld. In civil litigation the sort of stonewalling the Bushies have engaged in in criminal cases or to congress is impossible, because a bunch of lawyers if caught would be disbarred, their client sanctioned, and a common sanction is to hand victory to the plaintiff.
So the problem for the Bushies is the civil suits against the TelCos ... and the discovery associated with them. Sooner or later the TelCos lawyers, even the Repug firms, like Gibson Dunne, will hand over the discovery. And when that happens ... well it seems likely that there is stuff that will embarrass the TelCos some, but the Bushies a lot more. It will only embarrass the TelCos some, because at the end of the day, damages for privacy invasion are, in the scheme of the TelCos business, trivial. It will embarrass the Repugs a lot, and awful lot, an election losing for decades lots, because we are talking about our rights here.
There is one thing that can forestall the discovery process -- getting the cases dismissed before discovery happens (for example under the classic 12(b)(6) -- "failure to state a case for which relief can be granted," no damages from the TelCos equals a 12(b)(6) (unless a 4th Amendment argument against ongoing violations of the 4th can be made to stick.) That is what this entire effort is about. The Bushies want to ensure that they can get a Rule 12 dismissal at the start of the case, avoiding any embarrassing facts coming out.
The risks of the TelCos paying damages is not the issue - it is the risk of discovery, and a private party disclosing evidence of illegality by the Bushies, and their inability to protect against private lawyers producing the evidence.