The Bush administration said yesterday that the government “lost intelligence information” because House Democrats allowed a surveillance law to expire last week, causing some telecommunications companies to refuse to cooperate with terrorism-related wiretapping orders.
Instead of trying to scare congress into passing a bill providing immunity for law-breaking telecoms, how about you use the bully pulpit to start naming the companies who are not patriotic enough to adhere to lawful requests for information, you fucking jackass. They are required by law to pass on legal information, you know. Let the American people know that AT&T or Verizon hate America, or, more realistically, can’t be bothered to spend a few bucks on lawyers to figure out what is and is not a legal request from you dipshits.
God I hate these people.
*** Update ***
I should probably point out that I am not naive, the reason they want immunity is not because companies are turning down lawful requests. They want immunity so they can have willing co-conspirators in the telecoms who will turn over anything and everything they want and don’t have to worry about it when they do (and they still get fat government contracts, to boot). January 2009 can not come soon enough.
4tehlulz
>>how about you use the bully pulpit to start naming the companies who are not patriotic enough to adhere to lawful requests for information
Or shame them when they cut off wiretaps for nonpayment of bills.
demimondian
I’m actually kind of surprised that the Democrats in Congress haven’t responded with that precise counter. I think that they’re still negotiating in good faith and assuming that the Republicans are also doing so.
Rather, they should call the NDI to appear in open session and list the names of the companies who have not answered such subpoenas — and then summon the CEOs of those firms to appear and explain themselves.
J sub D
So they’re not rolling over, but rather are respecting the rights of their customers more than the whims of some GS-12 in DHS. Good for them. I want a company to be certain that they aren’t aiding and abetting an illegal invasion of my/your privacy rights. If some of them lose big bucks over previous transgressions, maybe the sycophantic rent seekers in the boardroom will think twice next time.
Incertus (Brian)
So theyâre not rolling over, but rather are respecting the rights of their customers more than the whims of some GS-12 in DHS. Good for them
Seconded. Again, it’s not like the telecoms are refusing to honor warrants. It’s that they’ve looked at the landscape, realized that the shit is already nose deep, and that they’d rather not get completely overcome by it if and when the White House and the Justice Department changes hands.
The Other Steve
It’s never quite clear to me what Bush is arguing for or against. His arguments tend to ramble and sound incoherent.
Golza
The telecoms could totally get in legal hot water over this. I propose retroactive immunity at once. If the rule of law gets a toehold here, there’s no telling where it might end.
Dennis - SGMM
Isn’t the statement from the AG and the DNI that they are losing intelligence (A hard job in The Dumbest Administration Ever) proof that there’s something illegal going on? I thought that the telcos were doing anything illegal, just patriotically helping the government. This push for immunity, both retroactive and prospective now, seems like an effort to immunize everyone should the next administration find this operation to be way out of bounds.
myiq2xu
G-Dub thinks “bully pulpit” is where you stand when your try to scare the bejeebus out of people to get what you want.
mark
In another thread srv suggests that Al Qaeda may yet attempt to vote for the Bush legacy by staging another attack, which would play right into this narrative. I wish I had more faith in the ability of the voters to see through this.
jake
Waaah! That would give away super top secret information that would let the tarrists steal our women and cut off our heads!
I’m surprised there isn’t some special executive war time power that allows the Codpiece in Chief to force compliance.
Better still, he could say the uncooperative tcoms are aiding the terrorists, seize their assets (assuming they have any in the U.S.) and put a very small chip in the deficit. And if he wanted to fling the CEO of Verizon in Gitmo … no. That would still be wrong.
Bob In Pacifica
Comcast is running so slow today I can only hope that their executives are the traitors and that they are tortured until they reveal their secret ties to al Qaeda.
borehole
2009 can come fast enough, actually. We’ll be so glad to get rid of these sons of bitches we won’t want the unpleasantness of holding their worthless asses accountable. By, oh, I dunno, say charging a telecom with violating the privacy laws and then, when it starts to sweat, flipping it for some actual courtroom-quality evidence of administration malfeasance.
Fucking unity ponies. Their rainbow manes are so distracting.
Dug Jay
On the other hand, the principal reason many Democrats oppose the immunity provisions in the bill passed by the Senate, is the objections of their largest financial contributors, the trial lawyers.
John Cole
That has been debunked fifty times. Someone throw this troll the link.
Helena Montana
With a 19% approval rating, I don’t think most folks are giving any credence to what that lying little retard says.
J. Michael Neal
Is the reason they want immunity passed so that the telecoms will provide information? Or, is it because they’re scared of discovery if the lawsuits proceed?
Velvet Elvis
In case anyone isn’t clear on what the goal is here . . .
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
“Anything and everything they want” is literally anything and everything.
borehole
You should change your name to J. Michael Nail, in honor of what you just did there with that second option.
Dennis - SGMM
I thought that if you haven’t done anything wrong then you have nothing to fear.
Jay C
You just noticed this?
As I commented on the other thread, I think the reasons for President Bush’s intransigence on the telecom-immunity issue re the PAA renewal is twofold: First: Bush, like most Republicans, is the bag for the big corporations (and Big Comm is very big), and they simply trying to buy their way out from any hassle over their cooperation with the government’s (illegal) data-mining programs; via the “immunity” provisions. Secondly, Bush (and in this instance I think it really does go back to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney personally) is frantic to cover his lame ass in case any future court ruling punctures his overblown claims of unaccountable “Unitary Executive” powers: i.e. that the Preznit is above the law as long as he can claim “national security” grounds: however bullshit they might be. No lawsuits, no investigations, no revelations of lawbreaking. QED.
dslak
He could start here, but I wouldn’t hope for much.
Dug Jay
Hardly. What can be said, however, is that it is far from clear that the tort lawyers carrying water for their Democrat buddies will prevail in court as the roughly 40 current cases are moved through the legal system. Decisions in the Sixth and Ninth Circuits suggest that the telecoms are likely to prevail.
But the Democrats’ lawyer friends have already wreaked a lot of havoc. The mere threat of such lawsuits is enough to make some phone companies think twice about helping the government. And maybe that’s the point. The fight over retroactive immunity should be seen for what it is: a backdoor attempt to shut down the government’s post-9/11 intelligence gathering efforts.
That is why the ACLU’s website wants you to “tell House leaders” to “keep standing up to Bush” and thank Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer for “standing up” to Bush’s “bullying.”
srv
One needs to remember that the telcos will probably play into this meme. All of the top security executives at the telcos are ex-gov’t or ex-TLA (three letter agency) types. Expect a telco to shortly start saying something akin to “We have to protect ourselves now, and subject these gov’t requests to thourough legal scrutiny, slowing down our ability to respond”.
srv
Fixed.
zsa
We’ve been through this before. J. Edgar Hoover kept his job for decades because he had the goods on all sorts of powerful people in Washington. Nixon used the power of the Presidency to attack and undermine his opposition.
Is there anyone who thinks that the Bush admin would never resort to spying on his political opponents? We don’t know what information was handed over. Bob Shrum’s phone logs? Perhaps recordings of Harry Reid? Emails from damn near everyone? We won’t know unless and until the telecoms have to stand up in court and account for what they’ve done. They’ll sing like fucking canaries, of course.
Bush knows that if the telecoms are faced with civil and criminal penalties, they’ll roll over on him … it’s just business, after all. So if he gets them immunity, it’s one less loose thread that might unravel.
Course, there’s so many loose threads that Bush is facing serious jail time at some point in the future regardless of what happens here. There’s only so many emails that can mysteriously disappear and so many subpoenas that can be ignored. I’m an IT guy and I can guarantee that emails never truly disappear … someone, somewhere has an archive copy of the missing emails.
It won’t happen until he’s well out of office, but Private Citizens Bush and Cheney will soon enough have to stand before a jury of their peers (or more accurately, their betters) and account for a pretty significant run of criminal activity.
Jay C
Just ONCE, I would like to some Congressional Democrat; Reyes or anyone else; Senator, Congressman, clerk, page, whatever – stand up in public and call these fearmongering clowns out on their BS. Clearly and plainly. Like:
“If Director McConnell feels he is unable to conduct intelligence-related surveillance in accordance with the laws of the land as written, perhaps he should resign his office; and the President nominate someone else who does”
Dug Jay
srv – Could you please document a real instance of an abuse of the subject intelligence gathering efforts in which “domestic” targets were involved. I ask because Diane Feinstein, who has access to unlimited classified data, has stated that she has researched literally hundreds of such allegations, and has not found a single instance of abuse.
myiq2xu
Let’s assume you are correct. Who are these evil trial lawyers representing? They have to have clients to file cases.
They are representing people who were illegally spied on by the government.
If the mere threat of lawsuits is enough to make the telecoms think twice ABOUT BREAKING THE LAW then that’s a good thing.
Svensker
The whole point of “rule of law” and “separation of powers” and “oversight” is that we, the citizens of a free country, don’t have to put up with “trust us” from the government.
Without those first three things, the “citizens of a free country” thingy no longer applies.
That’s the point.
Oh, and shove the “trial lawyer” gambit up your whosit.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Well, that might work for House and Senate Republicans, but the Bush Administration wants to tie off any loose ends they might have that leave them exposed to litigation.
I point out again: These people have no respect for anything other than their own glory. They don’t care what happens to telecoms, or this country, or this country’s citizens. They got to play with their toys in the sand, and now they don’t want Mom to ground them for breaking the house doing it.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Could you please put it through the thick skull of your cadre that the point is not that they screwed up in the past, it’s that someone (maybe not even your guys!) will screw up in the future. Everyone screws up sometime. Everyone.
And the size of the wrench you’re holding — when you screw up — increases the possible size of the machine you break.
Whatever happened to the right-wing of “the government should never have broad powers to abuse, despite their best intentions”?
Kat
Libby at Newshoggers really gave ’em a good thrashing:
White House spins itself silly on FISA
Excerpt:
Even more amusing, since the White House spin has been that the telecoms did nothing illegal and they’re just trying to protect the hapless corporations from bankruptcy via frivolous lawsuits, is this admission from the letter:
“You imply that the emergency authorization process under FISA is an adequate substitute for the legislative authorities that have elapsed. This assertion reflects a basic misunderstanding about FISA’s emergency authorization provisions. Specifically, you assert that the National Security Agency (NSA) or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “may begin surveillance immediately” in an emergency situation. FISA requires far more, and it would be illegal to proceed as you suggest.”
Sounds like a defacto confession of guilt to me. Which makes the lawsuits pretty damn relevant in uncovering the White House’s criminality. I guess doublespeak even makes its best practitioners dizzy after a while. I don’t know how it can get much sillier than this latest salvo.
On the plus side, it provides great fodder for creative YouTubes encouraging the Democrats to stand their ground and save the constitution.
/excerpt
A recent comment under that YouTube video says it all:
“75 percent of Americans Now Anti-American.” — The Onion
Kat
Dug Jay
I have no idea what you are trying to say beyond the possibility that you may be a scum-sucking trial lawyer.
Your objection to the Senate passed bill appears to rest on some nebulous and misguided beliefs about how government works. The government is seeking to capture intelligence in order to help secure the safety of its citizens through a structured arrangement, an arrangement that balances the requisite privacy concerns of US citizens with the need to have information to protect such citizens. There has never been a documented case in which the government has abused this intelligence gathering system. A bipartisan majority of the US Senate have voted for the very legislation that you oppose. The various court cases against the telecoms are expected to also be dismissed ultimately since they, like you and others in this thread, are merely based on unsubstantiated beliefs that PERHAPS/MAYBE this government will abuse the priveleges given to it by the law.
Dug Jay
No. The comprehension levels around here are not very great.
The letter that you excerpt is responding to a Democrat suggestion that the government already has the requisite authority needed to continue with intelligence gathering activities, notwithstanding the expiration last week of the underlying statutory authorities. The letter disagrees and states that following the suggestion from the Democrats would be illegal.
Svensker
That’s a lot of fancy words for “they want to wiretap without a warrant”.
“Unsubstantiated beliefs that maybe this government will abuse the privileges….”
What I said. “Trust us” is not what citizens of a free country allow their government to say.
And the “unsubstantiated” part? Well, that’s why the ACLU and other “scum sucking trial lawyers” want to substantiate what the government did through a trial.
Kat
Regarding ‘the letter’ quoted in my previous post, I should also have included Libby’s explanation:
DNI Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey are browbeating Congress and bleating about how the Democrats irresponsibly let the current temporary ‘fix’ lapse without rubberstamping the administration’s preferred criminal cover-up, otherwise known as telecom immunity. They sent a handwringing letter crying over the telecoms reluctance to continue cooperating with the program.
myiq2xu
They will increase dramatically when you leave.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
We already have that. It’s called the FISA Court. It’s in complete operation since its inception in 1978. It was never shut down. The Executive branch has three *forward* days to get a warrant to justify their continued wiretapping.
They’re in good shape.
The past is past. That means absolutely nothing about the future. You know, the fear that something stupid could happen 10 years from now?
Great, then what’s the big deal? Our intelligence is intact, except for the illegally-initialized streamlining program done at the backbone hubs. We’ll do it over and everything will speed up again. We’ve got everything we need, and everybody that reads knows it.
Why is it that the talking points Dug Jay receives are not only remarkable pseudo-factual cudgels, but are _always_ completely fucking wrong? It’s like there’s a conspiracy to feed these cheeto-dust addicts disorienting information that they can’t go out and hurt anyone with their brains.
myiq2xu
I would like to see evidence of one terrorist plot that has actually been averted due to all this eavesdropping.
Just one
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I would like to see evidence of one terrorist plot.
I’m honestly hoping — regardless of new president chosen — that we get a retroactive study of all the terrorist information we received so we can actually make heads and tails of what the global landscape looks like. This situation is so chock full of spoofs that it’s like I’m watching Georgie Bush’s _24_ Puppet Theater, and every supposed terrorist plot is some super-fantastical phantom of laughable origin.
J sub D
The telecom executives should get immunity from prosecution, …
in exchange for their testimony on illegal acts performed by the Bush administration, …
and only then.
4tehlulz
In a normal world, it would work that way. But in this one, the imunity would pass, and then on the day of the hearing, everything would become top-secret, accessible only to the president, vice-president, and Brit Hume.
Martin
Well, that’s a pile of shit.
It’s illegal for the telcos to refuse to comply with a court order (which is what a FISA warrant is) so they can’t be held liable if that’s what they are doing – so asking for immunity in this case is a non-starter.
And they’ve been doing this for 30 fucking years – and have never been sued over complying with a warrant and any suit that would come up would be thrown out.
And the post-911 issue is bullshit too. The meeting with the NSA and the telcos that initiated all of this, which Qwest backed out of because there was no FISA approval, took place on Feb 27, 2001. So unless the White House knew that 9/11 was about to happen then this has nothing to do with 9/11 and everything to do with taking an end-run around the courts and Congress.
If the WH wants to give the telcos immunity, they can. It’s simple. Produce the warrants for the wiretaps that the telcos get sued over and they’re immune. If they don’t have the warrants then either the telcos broke the law or the WH lied to them. In the former case, the suit is warranted. In the latter case we can just impeach the motherfuckers and the telcos are still off the hook.
Honestly, FISA is still there, still handing out warrants. If the telcos are refusing and the govt has a FISA warrant then they not complying with a court order and should be held accountable by the people whining. Given the kangaroo courts in Gitmo, I’d think even this fuck-up of a DOJ could manage that conviction. If the govt doesn’t have a FISA warrant then what it is doing is in fact illegal or the govt has decided to not go to FISA because it would make they look like they’ve been screaming hysterically about nothing all this time – which, by their own hysterical screaming would mean that they are putting American Lives At Riskâą in order to play politics.
chopper
what a horribly backwards concept of the constitution, dug.
it isn’t an issue of the US government having the right to do what it wants as long as it can’t be proven that they abused that right. in fact, that concept flies in the face of the entire idea of constitutional government.
the necessity of a warrant is a bedrock principle of the constitutional limitations on the executive branch. the warrant exists for a reason. i don’t care if the cops in my town are all nice, fair people who go to church every sunday – the necessity of a warrant to search my house exists outside of how nice the cops are.
4tehlulz
*immunity
The Other Steve
I don’t understand. If there has been no abuse, then why would the telecoms have anything to fear from lawsuits?
Frivilous lawsuits are generally thrown out of court, and it’s not like civil suits of this nature go before a jury. They go before a panel of judges. So the legal arguments rather than emotions will prevail.
This argument never made any sense to me.
The Other Steve
Yeah, this is another aspect of Bush’s argument which just doesn’t make any sense.
It appears to be that the fundamental reasoning for Bush to argue for many of the things he argues for is not because they are right, or even if they are wrong. He’s doing it for the sole purpose that Democrats don’t like it.
I think it’s really sad that Bush and his fellow Republicans are playing politics with our national security. If they need a hobby, they really ought to try knitting as I’ve heard it is quite relaxing.
The Grand Panjandrum
I for one am completely in favor of the PAA. It is very important that President Hillary Clinton have the ability to protect us from terrorists. Tapping the phones of Dug Jay, Red State denizen, and the Freepers could be a treasure trove for terrorist hunting. From all the accounts I’ve read they seem to be in or near the neighborhoods of every God Fearing Patriot. What could possibly go wrong with President Clinton exercising her constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief? I can’t see one, can you?
J sub D
The world is gonna change on January 20, 2009. Assuming that Obama gets the nod from the Dems, I, and many others, will vote for a Democrat for the first time in my life. If it’s Hillary, I’ll go Libertarian, (or as we long time members cynically call it, Losertarian) just like ’96 and ’04.
Longhairedweirdo
Dug Jay:
One point. Before your insults about lack of comprehension and such have any real power, folks have to respect you.
Now, there are places where you can talk big and mean and use naughty words and unkind language, and it will be respected. This, however, doesn’t seem to be one of those places.
To point to your own lack of understanding of the issues: Yes, the letter from McConnell and Mukasey does show clear evidence that the Bush administration has engaged in wholesale lawbreaking by operating outside of the FISA constraints.
It’s also interesting how the letter deals with some other issues. In order to establish cause to wiretap, they’d have to take some of their translators and intel ops off of some duties and make them fill out forms.
If only we had a Harvard MBA in office who could figure out how to fix problems like that… oh… wait. We *do* have a Harvard MBA in office. George something… he even has some authority, so he could make changes.
Well, an MBA graduated from Harvard would at least be able to figure out that hiring more translators and operatives would ameliorate that problem, and could probably even come up with some ideas for streamlining the process.
Assuming, of course, he was interested in obeying the law.
Kat
If the Dems are actually stupid enough to nominate Hillary (and especially if they were to do so by overriding the majority of voters with super-delegate votes), I suggest that the best way for us to teach both our f**ked up political parties an indelible lesson would be a massive campaign to write in Barack Obama.
The worst that could happen would be a three-way split, and the election being thrown into the House.
Martin
Can’t hire more translators. Turns out they are all gay so we have to keep firing them because apparently teh gays are a greater threat to america than the terrorists are.
badgervan
They also want immunity for what I consider is the prime reason that bush has been so stubborn on this: it would establish a precedent for future granting of immunity for any and all bushies who have violated Constitutional and civil law(s), in any way, shape or form…. over his entire eight year reign. Hired guns like John Yoo would get off scott free. I find this unacceptable…. these people must pay for their overreaching and lawbreaking, if for no other reason than that nobody ever tries their crap again.
PC
It has been alleged, from multiple sources, that the Bush administration approached telcos about warrantless wiretapping days after being sworn into office in 2001.
Longhairedweirdo
Martin:
That’s only in the military. The NSA includes civilian workers (I think almost all of them are civilians, but there are members of the military in it.)
(I know, you were joking. I just wanted to point this out anyway, in case anyone didn’t realize it.)
TenguPhule
Fuck you for a liar, Dug Jay. Does Nixon’s Enemy list ring any bells?
FISA was enacted precisely to stop the kind of unregulated shit Republicans love to do with power.
You junta jerkoffs abuse spying to include things that have nothing to do with the security of the nation. Your kind spies on people you don’t like, political opponents and those who are ‘not one of us’.
Gods willing, the Police State you have helped build will be the end of you and yours.
jake
A while back the State Dept. was asking people with Arabic language skills who’d been booted from the army under DADT to join one of the civilian orgs.
Yeah. Sure, Dr. Rice. No one could have possibly foreseen that treating people like shit would leave them less than likely to line up to be treated like shit again.
JR
That, and I think the word “discovery” has them shitting their pants in the White House counsel’s office. Since Congress won’t put the truth out, the civil courts might be willing to down the line, unless there’s legislation to make any suits moot (like, say, telecom immunity).
At least, that’s how this reads to me.
Nancy Irving
I suspect that the administration is now deliberately sending illegal requests to the telecoms.