HERE'S TO THE HOUSE (D-AWESOME) - Democratic Underground

WilliamPitt

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Fri Mar-14-08 01:52 PM
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HERE'S TO THE HOUSE (D-AWESOME)

House Passes New Surveillance Bill
By PAMELA HESS
The Associated Press

Friday, March 14, 2008; 2:21 PM

WASHINGTON -- The House on Friday narrowly approved a Democratic bill that would set rules for the government's eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails inside the United States.

The bill, approved as lawmakers departed for a two-week break, faces a veto threat from President Bush. The margin of House approval was 213 to 197, largely along party lines.

(snip)

Then the House went off script. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) responded to Bush's appeal, all but calling the president a liar.

"The president says Democrats in Congress should not be deceived. They are not deceived. They know the law. They know the Constitution. We understand our responsibility to protect the American people. What the President is trying to do is something that we think should be stopped," she said, adding, "I am stating a fact. The president is wrong, and he knows it."

Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama jumped into the fray, charging, "once again, the president is playing politics with something that should be able to get bipartisan support. There is no need to give immunity to phone companies, particularly when there hasn't been a full airing of what was done in these programs. We're not going to give a blank check to private entities who potentially are violating the privacy of their customers."

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/14/AR2008031400803.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance
Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

Friday March 14, 2008 13:59 EDT

The House just now approved a new FISA bill that denies retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms and which refuses to grant most of the new powers for the President to spy on Americans without warrants. It passed comfortably, by a 213-197 margin.

Notably, many of the 21 "Blue Dogs" who previously signed a letter indicating their support for telecom immunity and the Rockefeller bill -- including several of the six whom our highly successful fund-raising campaign earlier this week targeted -- voted (and spoke) in support of the House bill (only 10 Democrats voted against the bill, including at least a couple of progressives who think the bill doesn't go far enough). Many of those Blue Dogs were persuaded to support the bill by the protections which the bill offers to telecoms (i.e., authorizing them to introduce even classified evidence in the lawsuits to prove they complied with the law, if they actually did).

As impressive as the House vote itself was, more impressive still was the floor debate which preceded it. I can't recall ever watching a debate on the floor of either House of Congress that I found even remotely impressive -- until today. One Democrat after the next -- of all stripes -- delivered impassioned, defiant speeches in defense of the rule of law, oversight on presidential eavesdropping, and safeguards on government spying. They swatted away the GOP's fear-mongering claims with the dismissive contempt such tactics deserve, rejecting the principle that has predominated political debate in this country since 9/11: that the threat of the Terrorists means we must live under the rule of an omnipotent President and a dismantled constitutional framework.

It is possible that the House will ultimately end up capitulating to the President, but I have real doubts about whether that will happen. They have defied the standard GOP Terrorism-exploitation attacks for weeks, allowed the Protect America Act to expire (once the President refused to extend it), and now passed a very good bill even in the midst of intense GOP/media attacks. They did so as a result of a shrewd strategy and a willingness to frame and engage the debate aggressively. My views on the bill, and the unexpectedly commendable behavior of House Republicans, are here, from earlier in the week.

It's hard not to believe that there's not at least some significant sea change reflected by this. They have seen that they can defy the President even on matters of Terrorism, and the sky doesn't fall in on them. Quite the opposite: an outspoken opponent of telecom amnesty, warrantless eavesdropping and the Iraq War was just elected to the House from Denny Hastert's bright red district, and before that, Donna Edwards ousted long-time incumbent Al Wynn by accusing him of being excessively complicit with the Bush agenda.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/14/fisa/

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