you can use to e-mail Senators.

It is here:

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=356

If Congress passes amnesty (let's call it that), and the president signs it, can a later Congress strip the companies of their amnesty, or does it last forever?

If it were a criminal matter, then the law stripping immunity might arguably be an ex post facto law, and thus unconstitutional (although it could be argued that it didn't make the actions any more criminal than they were at the time they were committed, and thus that no unfair or unforseeable penalty is being imposed).

But as a civil penalty (as 50 USC § 1810 is), the ex post facto prohibition almost certainly doesn't apply. But IANAL, so take that with a grain of salt.

Cheers,

Farbie,

Thanks for the concise description of what happened on the floor of the Senate yesterday. Since it appears you know the rules behind Senate procedures, perhaps you can clear this up for me:

Last month when Harry Reid brought the SIC (Intelligence Committee) bill to the floor rather than the SJC (Judiciary Committee) bill (which didn’t contain the immunity provision), there was a general feeling that Reid had sold us out, inasmuch as his Majority Leader role provided him with the discretion of determining which bills would be addressed on the floor and in which order. After the Senate decided to postpone this issue until this month, Senator Dodd (speaking on Obermann’s show) implied that Reid “had to” bring up the SIC committee bill first because of certain floor procedures (Something to the effect that the Intelligence Committee had priority in these matters).

Can you, or anyone else, explain to me why Senate procedures prevented the Senate from taking initial action on the generally acceptable SJC bill in December?

The administration had plenty of opportunity to taylor the FISA law to their liking when they still had a Republican majority in both houses. Why they didn't bother to do so remains mysterious. But this of course means that everything that they are saying now about how vital the latest modifications are is in fact a self serving lie.

Nothing in the current bill was unobtainable in any earlier legislative process EXCEPT retroactive immunity.

One needn't be overly suspicious or anything but rational to conclude that the scope of the NSA program has far exceeded anything that the public has been allowed to believe to date and that the members of the Senate intelligence committee (from both parties), having had the opportunity to object to the program well before today, are now complicit in trying to prevent the release of any further information on the subject.

I'm forced to conclude that the whole point of the exercise is to assert the right of the executive to ignore the law. Otherwise they could have rewritten FISA in 2002 and no one would have blinked. Unfortunately for them, ATT doesn't feel quite as invincible and is insisting on getting the same kind of protection that the White House currently enjoys.

I think you're forgetting how much effort they went to to keep these programs secret, even to the point of intimidating Bill Keller. Also, keep in mind that the 2004 election was close, and the revelation that there was an illegal eavesdropping operation going on might have influenced some votes.

Once you take as a starting point that they did not want to admit to what they are doing pre 2004, then everything else falls into place. The next element of recognition is that they still will not say what they are doing. Telecom amnesty, while in the apparent financial interests of Jello Jay et al, is primarily a mechanism to keep the lid on these operations.

I'd really be interested in how much Feingold knows about what they are doing.

I think that Rockefeller's complicity in permitting this is part of the story as well.

However, I think that all of what we've seen can be attributed to their not wanting us know what they've been doing. Consider as well how hard they've worked to keep from holding hearings. It took extraordinary effort, and manipulation of senate rules to even get to this point.

What is still hard to understand is why the Republicans insisted on not allowing debate on the other amendments. All i can think is that they are afraid of media coverage of the substance of the issue. That seems like a baseless fear. The only organ paying any attention to this is the NYT editorial board. I don't watch the teevee. I assume there's been nothing there either.

Admirable quality? Courage in battle and death.

Primitive societies didn't necessarily disdain their enemies the way the Bushcos do. There was often a great deal of respect extended, just not while they were flinging whatever passed for weapons at the time.

Yes, I knew about Bush and Cheney's "scalps". Disgusting.

Thanks for the link to EFF.

I got on the horn to Dodd and Joltin' Joe.

Ditto.

That EFF link is great. One of the best for ease of use, too. I especially appreciated how easy it was to edit the template letter.

Liz Cheney...

How in the world can it be that Liz Cheney is a Senior Foreign Policy Adviser to Mitt Romney? WTHell?

I understand that Karen Hughes wasn't available, and Michael Brown was already advising the Huckabee campaign...on the Arabian horse situation. And anyway, what more does Romney need to know about foreign relations beyond "America good, world bad, we got more bombs!"?

"Democrats sat quietly while Republicans cheered many of the president's applause lines, no longer afraid of seeming to slight Mr. Bush. They snickered at some points and some called aloud for a return of troops from Iraq. 'Bring them home, bring them home,' they chanted." (Carl Hulse in the New York Times)

When there is nothing at stake in taking a stand -- like taking a stand years ago when the press might have questioned that patriotism or whether they were strong on national security -- the Dems grow a spine.

But once in the Senate where they can be attacked once again as being soft on national security and bullied by the Republicans, that spine will snap and they will dutifully lap up from the trough of money from the telecoms and allow the Republicans to pull the stings of the marrionette Democrats.