As his opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination stayed in Iowa, scrambling for victory in the January primaries, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut came back to Washington and eked out a win on the Senate floor.
With Dodd threatening a filibuster, Senate Democratic leaders pulled a proposed reform of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act Monday night, agreeing to reassess a provision that would have granted retroactive legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.
The withdrawal of the bill came after Dodd had been on the Senate floor — making speeches, threatening amendments, answering questions — for roughly eight hours…
“Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy,” Dodd said in a written statement Monday night, after the compromise was announced. “The President should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens.”
As John noted in yesterday’s Tech5 podcast, the Senate rolled over in the prelims – 76 to 10 – ready to cover Telcom buns for collaborating with Bush.
Harry Reid caved in to Dodd – verbalizing his fear that confronting Bush “doesn’t mean we’re any less patriotic than anyone else.”
It doesn’t mean that he’s any less pathetic than anyone else, either.
Dodd is a good man and he alone had the courage to fight this. The other candidates opposed this, but put campaigning first.
Thank you Senator Dodd!!!!
Is there really a difference between the two parties? If it wasn’t for the few principaled legislators the fix would be in.
Chris Dodd has sized the opportunity to use this as a campaign issue, whatever it takes, this needs to go away for good.
The thought that this retroactive amnesty would be granted to companies is insane. There seems to be a saying among folks who want to let the govt see what I do that says “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you haven’t got anything to hide” Let’s apply this logic to companies. If they just have legal footing they have nothing to hide.
Get a warrant, it’s not like the _existing_ FISA rules are all that hard, you can see anything.
Just my $.02
My understanding is this program existed before 911! So who were they protecting us from?
I mean screw these guys. If they broke the law, let them be prosecuted. Otherwise you get the message that it’s ok to break the law on behalf of the Government. The Government needs to follow it’s own laws.
Having said that we should prosecute the SOBs that broke the laws on the Government side.
Oh boy, go after the telecom companies for helping the military. This is all about protecting lawyers’ fees.
@MikeN
[sarcasm on]
You are right Mike. This has nothing to do with a President running roughshod over the Constitution and protecting his “buddies”.
[sarcasm off]
Well in that case, go after the President.
Parroting the conservative talking points again, I see:
This isn’t the fault of constitution-hating conservative Republicans.
The REAL problem is the Dems who haven’t stopped them yet.
Good God! It was three days after 9/11 and the government came to these companies and ask them to help look for a larger conspiracy. They did it and now you want to sue them!! You people are probably the same ones who were screaming that the Bush administration should have connected all the dots!
“You people, you people”. Yup. Us silly people who think the Constitution is in place 24/7, good, bad or indifferent.
On the other hand, there are candyass opportunists who are willing to drop the rule of law for the rule of some dork in a white hat – I guess because they’re in charge. Right?
Pathetic.
Thank you for taking down the image you appropriated. That is responsible. What is irresponsible is now erasing all trace that it has happened. I would like an apology and an entry on why this happened, why my entirely reasonable comments have been deleted, and what the standard will be going forward.
Patiently waiting, and chronicling the event here:
montaraventures.com/blog/2007/12/18/dvorak-steals-copyrighted-work/
Mike – if you read our comments guide [you do read things like that, right?], you’d see that we edit a lot of crap from our comments. One of which is personal agendas which do not contribute to the discussion topic. Which is where your comment #12 fits. And all previous.
Your state of denial over essential web functions – like linking – are your problem, not mine.
John has emailed you with his position on your behavior. That’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned. This is his blog and I try to comply with his standards – not yours.
btw – I replaced your image with a copyrighted image from the Associated Press. I don’t expect to be whined at by them.
Eidard – Do you think its reasonable to link to someone else’s images/content without attribution? Does Mr Dvorak?
Its disheartening to see this couldn’t be dealt with in a reasonable manner and that even your response to Mike’s latest comment was rude and intended to needlessly offend.
Oh golly, oh gosh. Someone at Dvorak Uncensored said something that was rude and offended.
The whole fracking world of blogs is founded on hotlinks – and the occasional dweeb whines about it. Let’s turn the whole Web into a tea party discussion club.
god – your sarcasm is hilarious. well done. really.
Oh I know proles like us will be rude in these comments, my point was more that Eidard appeared to work here for Dvorak so I was hoping, incorrectly, for him to be above such behavior and possibly professional. Oh well…
Dvorak is cranky. Eideard is often irascible. I could give a shit.
[edit: see comments guide]
# 10 Barister said Good God! It was three days after 9/11 and the government came to these companies and ask them to help look for a larger conspiracy. They did it and now you want to sue them!!
We get attacked by some crazies and their first reaction is to flush the constitution down the crapper.
But here’s the creepy thing: Bush authorized secret vast spying on Americans BEFORE 9.11.
http://tinyurl.com/p5n8p
Totally busted, your behaviour in this case is unacceptable. I am and have been reposting this story on more than 40 blogs by end of day today seeing as you are censoring it here and will not apologize.