FISA's Senate Floor Fight Harry Reid's Fault
There has been so much written about the FISA bill. Just on this site alone, plug FISA onto the search menu button and you have more than a few posts on the subject. That is true about many other progressive sites throughout the blogosphere.
It boils down to to this:
No telecom retroactive immunity for warrantless surveillance. Telecoms knew that they needed warrants before doing Bush's bidding. They broke the law. Bush and his administration also broke the law and they want cover now.
Unfortunately, this hypocritical, imperial executive attempt by the Bushites to again defy the Constitution and rule of law was steered onto the Senate floor by none other than the Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Glenn Greenwald wrote, in December, an excellent summary of the unbelievable stupidity and lack of integrity of Reid's moves:
Harry Reid is some or all of the following: incompetent, a closet Republican, or, like Bushites, doesn't believe in the Constitution, In any case, he should not be the Democratic Majority Leader any longer, despite his last minute attempts to try and overcome the justified anger of pro-Constitution Americans.
It boils down to to this:
No telecom retroactive immunity for warrantless surveillance. Telecoms knew that they needed warrants before doing Bush's bidding. They broke the law. Bush and his administration also broke the law and they want cover now.
Unfortunately, this hypocritical, imperial executive attempt by the Bushites to again defy the Constitution and rule of law was steered onto the Senate floor by none other than the Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Glenn Greenwald wrote, in December, an excellent summary of the unbelievable stupidity and lack of integrity of Reid's moves:
"The summarized version is that there were two competing bills which Reid could have brought to the floor -- the Senate Intelligence Committee version engineered by Jay Rockefeller and Dick Cheney which gives the administration most of what it wants, and the Senate Judiciary Committee, which does not contain telecom amnesty and contains far more extensive oversight protections. Reid could have brought the bill to the floor using whatever process he wanted, and he has decided -- contrary to weeks of assurances -- that the SIC bill will serve as the "base" bill, meaning that improving it (by removing amnesty and increasing oversight) will require 60 votes, rendering such efforts virtually impossible. In doing so, Reid is brazenly ignoring thedemands of 14 Senators -- including all of the Democratic presidential candidates -- to have the Judiciary Committee bill be the base bill.
"Worse still, Reid is completely disregarding the "hold" placed by Chris Dodd on any amnesty bill -- simply refusing to honor it, even as he respectfully honors literally scores of "holds" from GOP Senators such as Tom Coburn. And while Dodd is interrupting his campaigning to fly to Washington to lead the filibuster he vowed, Reid has ensured with scheduling manuevers that the filibuster will take place only over the weekend -- when all of the members are away raising money anyway and journalists aren't paying attention -- with the intent to try to force cloture once everyone returns on Monday."
Harry Reid is some or all of the following: incompetent, a closet Republican, or, like Bushites, doesn't believe in the Constitution, In any case, he should not be the Democratic Majority Leader any longer, despite his last minute attempts to try and overcome the justified anger of pro-Constitution Americans.
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