They Hate Us For Our Freedoms

Reminding us today that Senate filibusters not only have to involve actual filibustering, but also can be used to block things other than health-care, minimum wage increases, and alternative energy bills is Chris Dodd.

At issue here is the temporary FISA revision passed this summer under a cloud of fear (with Trent Lott and others warning that al Qaeda would blow us all up over Labor Day weekend if it wasn't). Democrats promised to fix matters when the temporary bill came up for final passage in the Fall. That time has come, and not only are Democrats prepared to rubberstamp the permanent renewal of a bill that rewards the President's lawbreaking for years, but also gives retroactive immunity to the telecom companies who aided the program. This is where Dodd and a few others have drawn the line.

But what about the terrorists (?!!), I can hear some ask. Well-

For months, the Bush administration has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program...

...A lawsuit was filed in federal court in New Jersey challenging [NSA's] wiretapping operations. It claims that in February 2001... N.S.A. met with AT&T officials to discuss replicating a network center in Bedminster, N.J., to give the agency access to all the global phone and e-mail traffic that ran through it.

The accusations rely in large part on the assertions of a former engineer on the project. The engineer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview that he participated in numerous discussions with N.S.A. officials about the proposal. The officials, he said, discussed ways to duplicate the Bedminster system in Maryland so the agency "could listen in" with unfettered access to communications that it believed had intelligence value and store them for later review. There was no discussion of limiting the monitoring to international communications, he said...

Now, I may only have a Bachelor's degree, but I'm pretty sure that February 2001 was before the attacks used to justify all this behavior. Like the invasion of Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other actions, warrantless wiretapping is something the Bush Republicans have long wanted (Cheney took the post-Nixon reforms personally) and have gleefully used the deaths of 3,000 people to get their wishes.

And yet no more than a handful of Senators is standing up against the legitimization of this.

Matthew Yglesias perfectly sums up the now-cliche fear driving Democrats here-

"It's more or less the politics of 2002 all over again, a belief that public distemper with the economy will glide Democrats to victory if only those mean 'ol Republicans don't run on national security."

And you can be sure that, when the Democrats cave, Republicans will be so kind to them!

Frankly, it is amazing that Harry Reid even allowed Dodd to do this, because apparently modern Senate rules require him to only do what the Republicans want. Dodd left the campaign trail in Iowa to do this, showing a quality of leadership that (sadly) only an also-ran can afford. He may never be President, but he'd make a hell of a Majority Leader if Democrats ever got the balls to mutiny against Reid's limp 'leadership'.

Here is a clip of Sen. Dodd on the Senate floor discussing the issue-



Earlier in the morning, Kennedy had said: "The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies."

And that, folks, is how you play ball. Not that it matters. Short of a massive infusion of spine on Capitol Hill very soon, Sen. Dodd is only delaying the inevitable. The Senate hates us for our freedoms.

[UPDATE: VICTORY!! Sen. Reid made the decision to pull the bill until next year.]