There is nothing else you can call it:
"Wiretapping Compromise Was Months in the Making"
"Wiretapping Compromise Was Months in the Making" by SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — Last June, in a phone conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney, John D. Rockefeller IV, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, set down his conditions for revising the law governing the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping. Only when the committee got access to secret administration documents authorizing surveillance without court warrants, Mr. Rockefeller told the vice president, would it consider such legislation.
That vow paid off this week when, after some last-minute brinkmanship, the committee got to see the documents and then on Thursday night passed a bipartisan bill that offers a compromise between Congress and the Bush administration on the contentious eavesdropping issue.
Under the bill, the administration would get retroactive legal immunity for the telecommunications companies that have granted the N.S.A. access to private communications and phone call data; Democrats would get increased oversight of the agency’s eavesdropping by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Congress and inspectors general.
The bill is a long way from becoming law. The House Intelligence Committee, and the Judiciary Committees of both the Senate and the House, have not been allowed to see the secret documents: President Bush’s orders authorizing the program, and Justice Department opinions laying out its legal basis. And White House officials are being coy about whether those committees will get access.
Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Friday that the Senate Intelligence Committee had gained access to the documents only after its leaders had indicated that they would grant immunity to the phone and Internet companies.
[In other words: DEMOCRAPS COMPLETELY CAVED!!!]
“To the extent of anyone else being able to see the documents,” Ms. Perino said, “I think that we’ll wait and see who else is willing to include that provision in the bill.”
The White House is also objecting to one amendment in the Senate legislation. That provision, by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, would require individual court warrants for eavesdropping on Americans overseas; at present, only the attorney general’s authorization is required.
Further, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut has said he will put a hold on the bill in order to block the immunity provision, a pledge that Republicans swiftly denounced as a fund-raising gimmick for his long-shot Democratic presidential campaign.
[Who cares why Wyden and Dodd are doing it; at least SOMEONE CARES about the Constitution]
Despite all those obstacles, the Senate bill is the closest approach to date to a compromise between those underscoring a need to listen in on terrorists and those who would protect the privacy of Americans’ phone calls and e-mail messages.
[These shit papers make it appear like there are protections, etc, and like our Constitution hasn't already been shredded.
That's why I hate FOOLEYED YA, papers! THEY LIE!!!!!!]
Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Cheney had tangled previously over the N.S.A. domestic surveillance program. In July 2003, after a briefing for leaders of the Intelligence Committees from which staff members were barred, Mr. Rockefeller hand-wrote a protest note to the vice president, saying that as “neither a technician nor an attorney,” he was not able to satisfy his concerns about the legality of eavesdropping without warrants.
Mr. Rockefeller, of West Virginia, and other Democrats were also dissatisfied with the changes to eavesdropping law rushed through Congress before the August recess.
[Then WHY RUSH the VOTE?!?!
Harman already said the SCARE was a FAKE!!!]
Ensuring that those changes would be revisited, Democratic leaders placed a six-month limit on the legislation, which was passed in response to a court ruling that had restricted the N.S.A.’s intelligence gathering. The bill adopted by the Senate committee on Thursday night would succeed that new law.
The White House negotiated the bill primarily through Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the leading Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a staunch ally in efforts to broaden the N.S.A.’s wiretapping authority. Officials said that while Mr. Rockefeller had had some direct dealings with the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and other administration officials, it was Mr. Bond who had acted as the main liaison to the White House on the issue.
This week, with the administration promising access to documents, but not before next Monday, Mr. Rockefeller threatened to cancel a committee meeting, scheduled for this Thursday, where the legislation was to be “marked up” — that is, debated and voted on. “We said, ‘Good, there won’t be any markup,’” he recounted.
The White House yielded, inviting senators and staff members with clearances to inspect the documents on Wednesday.
[Yeah, great, big, tough, cock-sucking Jay!]
During a long committee debate behind closed doors Thursday, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, proposed an amendment to strip the immunity provision from the bill. But it was defeated on a 12-to-3 vote, with only Mr. Wyden and one other Democrat, Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, joining Mr. Nelson.
[America is DEAD!!! Long live AmeriKa!!!!!!!!!]
In the end, only Mr. Feingold and Mr. Wyden voted against the bill, a result announced with a surprising show of comity for a committee that has often been mired in partisan sniping. Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Bond interrupted each other to praise the committee’s bipartisan effort.
[Awwwww, isn't that special?!]
Meanwhile, the administration has largely shunned leaders in the House, Democrats there say. And leaders of the House Intelligence Committee and both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees have said they still have no indication that they will be given access to the administration documents, which they have sought for months.
[Sit on that huge middle-finger salute and spin, DemocraPs!]
As administration officials press those committees to accept the Senate bill, they will face the staunch opposition of civil liberties groups, which generally oppose granting immunity to the telecommunications carriers. On Friday, Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned the Senate compromise.
“Congress,” Ms. Fredrickson said, “bowed to the fearmongering of the administration, yet again.”
Which is why I HATE this Congress!!!!!
WE ELECTED YOU TO DO A JOB -- be a check and balance -- and YOU FAILED, DemocraPs!!!
WON'T BE GETTING MY VOTE NEXT TIME (if there even is an election).
And I was OUT IN FRONT of the New York Times editorial staff?
I am BLOGGER, hear me ROAR!!!
I was "Person-of-the-Year" last year, you know?
"With Democrats Like These ...
Every now and then, we are tempted to double-check that the Democrats actually won control of Congress last year. It was particularly hard to tell this week. Democratic leaders were cowed, once again, by propaganda from the White House and failed, once again, to modernize the law on electronic spying in a way that permits robust intelligence gathering on terrorists without undermining the Constitution.
The task before Congress was to review and improve an update to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, that was pushed through the Capitol just before the summer break. That bill endorsed warrantless wiretapping and gutted other aspects of the 1978 law.
House Democrats drafted a measure that, while imperfect, was an improvement to the one passed this summer. But before the House could vote, Republicans tied up the measure in bureaucratic knots and Democratic leaders pulled it. Senate Democrats did even worse, accepting a Potemkin compromise that endorsed far too much of the bad summer law.
We were left wondering who is really in charge, when in a bipartisan press release announcing the agreement, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond, described the bill as “a delicate arrangement of compromises” that could not be changed in any way. The committee’s chairman, Jay Rockefeller, didn’t object.
As the debate proceeds, Americans will be told that the delicate compromises were about how the government may spy on phone calls and electronic messages in the age of instant communications. Republicans have already started blowing hot air about any naysayers trying to stop spies from tracking terrorists.
No one is doing that. The question really is whether Congress should toss out chunks of the Constitution because Mr. Bush finds them inconvenient and some Democrats are afraid to look soft on terrorism.
FISA requires a warrant to spy on communications within the United States or between people in this country and people abroad. After 9/11, Mr. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to spy, without a warrant, on communications between the United States and other countries. The N.S.A. obtained data from American telecommunications companies by telling them it was legal.
After The Times disclosed the program in late 2005, Mr. Bush looked for a way to legalize it retroactively. He found it this summer. FISA also requires a warrant to intercept strictly foreign communications that happen to move through data networks in the United States.
That Internet age flaw has a relatively simple fix. But the White House seized the opportunity to ram through the far broader bill, which could authorize warrantless surveillance of Americans’ homes, offices and phone records; permit surveillance of Americans abroad without probable cause; and sharply limit the power of the court that controls electronic spying.
Democrats justified their votes for this bad bill by noting that the law expires in February and by promising to fix it this fall. The House bill did, in fact, restore most judicial safeguards. But the deal cooked up by Mr. Rockefeller and the White House doesn’t. It would not expire for six years, which is too long. And it would dismiss pending lawsuits against companies that turned data over to the government without a warrant.
This provision is not primarily about protecting patriotic businessmen, as Mr. Bush claims. It’s about ensuring that Mr. Bush and his aides never have to go to court to explain how many laws they’ve broken. It is a collusion between lawmakers and the White House that means that no one is ever held accountable. Democratic lawmakers said they reviewed the telecommunications companies’ cooperation (by reading documents selected by the White House) and concluded that lawsuits were unwarranted. Unlike them, we still have faith in the judicial system, which is where that sort of conclusion is supposed to be reached, not in a Senate back room polluted by the politics of fear.
There were bright spots in the week. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon managed to attach an amendment requiring a warrant to eavesdrop on American citizens abroad. That merely requires the government to show why it believes the American is in league with terrorists, but Mr. Bush threatened to veto the bill over that issue.
Senator Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, said he would put a personal hold on the compromise cooked up by Senator Rockefeller and the White House.
Otherwise, it was a very frustrating week in Washington. It was bad enough having a one-party government when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues."
Glad you are finally seeing the light, Times?
So when is your news coverage going to reflect more of the truth, and less Zionists shit spew?
