Hey, DemocraPs!
WAKE UP about 9/11, will ya'?
No, once again the DemocraPs back down and Bush WINS AGAIN:
"Senate Deal on Immunity for Phone Companies" by ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee reached a tentative agreement on Wednesday with the Bush administration that would give telephone carriers legal immunity for any role they played in the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program approved by President Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a Congressional official said Wednesday.
[Goodbye, United States of America!]
Senators this week began reviewing classified documents related to the participation of the telephone carriers in the security agency program and came away from that early review convinced that the companies had “acted in good faith” in cooperating with what they believed was a legal and presidentially authorized program and that they should not be punished through civil litigation for their roles, the official said.
As part of legislation on the security agency’s wiretapping authorities, the White House has been pushing hard for weeks to get immunity for the telecommunications companies in discussions with Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the ranking Republican. A tentative deal was first reported by The Washington Post.
The Intelligence Committee will begin reviewing the legislation at a closed session on Thursday.
The agreement between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Bush administration would also include a greater role for the secret intelligence court in overseeing and approving methods of wiretapping used by the security agency, the official said.
But it is not clear whether this and other toughened civil liberties safeguards included in the agreement will go far enough to mollify senators on the Senator Judiciary Committee, who will also review the plan once the intelligence panel finishes its work.
Word of the deal came hours after House Republicans used a parliamentary maneuver to scuttle a vote on a measure that would have imposed new restrictions on the security agency’s eavesdropping powers.
[This wasn't in the web version, folks. I wonder why]
"In a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney in June, Mr. Rockefeller indicated he would not move ahead with a review of any N.S.A. legislation until his committee had access to the documents, said Wendy Morigi, a spokeswoman for the senator. Based on the access the White House has now provided, Mrs. Morigi said "he feels they have complied."
[Now there, was that so hard, Dick?
WHY the secrecy and shit then?
SOMETHING STINKS, readers!]
Back to the piece:
At the start of the day, Democrats were confident that the measure would gain approval in the House despite a veto threat from President Bush. But after an afternoon of partisan sniping, Democratic leaders put off that vote because of a competing measure from Republicans that on its face asked lawmakers to declare where they stood on stopping Osama bin Laden from attacking the United States again.
[Uh, about bin Laden: He didn't do it, and he's dead!]
The Republican measure declared that nothing in the broader bill should be construed as prohibiting intelligence officials from conducting the surveillance needed to prevent Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda “from attacking the United States.” Had it passed, it threatened to derail the Democratic measure altogether.
Democrats denounced the Republicans’ poison pill on Mr. bin Laden as a cynical political ploy and “a cheap shot.” But Democratic leaders realized that they were at risk of losing the votes of a contingent of more moderate Democrats who did not want to be left vulnerable for voting against a resolution to stop Al Qaeda, officials said. So the leaders pulled the measure, promising to take it up again next week once they could solidify support.
[You mean, "Al-CIA-Duh," right?]
A senior Democratic aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal leadership deliberations:
"[The Republican maneuver] would have killed the bill, and we couldn’t risk that. We thought we’d be able to defeat it, but it became clear that we couldn’t.”
The episode revealed, once again, fault lines within the Democratic Party over how to tackle national security questions without appearing “soft” on terrorism in the face of Republican criticism.
Indeed, Republican leaders immediately praised their ability to block the N.S.A. measure as a sign of the Democrats’ weakness on that issue.
Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico:
"[Speaker Nancy Pelosi] underestimated the intelligence of the American people and the bipartisan majority in the Congress to understand what matters most: preventing another terrorist attack.”
[Well, she is real good as misreading and fucking things up, Heather!]
Democrats, clearly thrown on the defensive, countered that Republicans were the ones playing politics with national security.
Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic leader:
“Once again, House Republicans have chosen to engage in politics rather than substantively address the challenges that face the American people. Once again, they have offered an amendment that, if passed, would have substantially delayed this important legislation which is designed to protect the American people by proposing language already provided in the bill.”
[And, once again, I find myself writing about BULLSHIT POLITICS!]
The Democratic measure would have sought to restore some of the restrictions on the security agency’s wiretapping powers that had been loosened under a temporary measure approved by Congress just before its August recess. The new bill would give the secret foreign intelligence court a greater oversight role in the agency’s interception of foreign-based communications into the United States, and it would provide for more reporting and accountability when the communications of Americans were involved.
The Bush administration has lobbied hard against the measure. One of its chief complaints is that the House bill would not provide immunity for telephone carriers as the Senate measure does.
[But, THEY WILL, don't you worry, Amurkns!
Hello? (click, click)
Did you hear what I heard, reader?]
A day after threatening to veto the House measure, Mr. Bush kept up the political pressure Wednesday in the hours before the bill was to come up for a vote. He said at a news conference that the Democratic plan would weaken national security, and he urged Congress instead to make permanent the measure it passed in August, which broadened the security agency’s authority to wiretap terrorism suspects without court oversight. That measure expires in February."
[And HE'LL GET IT!!
You gonna bet on limp-pudded DemocraPs to stop him, reader?]
