Senator Russ Feingold On The FISA Victory And The Fight Ahead
By Logan Murphy Tuesday Dec 18, 2007 8:36am
h/t Heather for video
Wisconsin Democrat, Russ Feingold, spoke eloquently yesterday as he joined Senator Dodd's successful bid to stop the latest FISA legislation in the Senate that would have given retroactive immunity to telecom companies who betrayed the American people by spying on us without warrants. Below are excerpts of his post at TPM Cafe. Senator Feingold has always been a huge supporter of protecting our civil liberties and deserves our thanks for fighting for us all. Drop him a line and let him know you appreciate it.
Via TPM Cafe:
As you all know by now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided last night to pull the deeply flawed Intelligence Committee FISA bill from the floor. He announced that we would return to the bill in January. Senator Chris Dodd did a great job controlling the floor for much of yesterday, insisting on full debate of the motion to proceed after cloture was invoked. We made it clear that we will do everything we can to stop this bad bill from being jammed through. Other Senators, including Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Ron Wyden, Sherrod Brown, and Ben Cardin, eloquently laid out many of the problems with this bill. And even Senators who supported the bill in the Intelligence Committee, such as Sheldon Whitehouse and Dianne Feinstein, made valuable contributions to the debate.
The grassroots involvement on this issue has been nothing short of amazing. I was pleased to be part of yesterday's success, but we have earned only a temporary respite. We must not squander the extra time we've been given. We must keep the pressure on and fight back against the administration's fear-mongering. The Senate made a mistake when it failed to protect the rights and freedoms of the American people in the Patriot Act in 2001 and again during the reauthorization of that law two years ago. It compounded those mistakes many times over in the so-called Protect America Act. It is time to stop giving in to an administration that does not respect the rule of law. Read on...
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I was watching and listening when he spoke. He truly is the Man!
I applaud Senator Feingold's comments. Though I would not just call the wiretapping issue unjustified. No, to me the Patriot Act itself and the illegal wiretapping conducted by the Bush Administration and those telephone companies come right out of the pages of the KGB or Nazi Gestapo. This is "Big Brother" at its biggest. What can we expect next from the Bush Administration? A form of the "enabling Act" like the one given to Hitler perhaps?
is the white house on fire?
OT: Am watching CSPAN call in show and they reported that there is a fire in the
Old Executive Bldg...home where Dickhead Cheney's Office is located. Am wondering
if Dickhead, now knowning that a Fed. Judge has ruled that his and Prez. bush's
vistors logs are "open record", is having a bonfire within his office in order to destroy
the records. Seems like humor, but knowing that prick, it would not be a surprise
to me if Dickhead is actually attempting to destroy these records.
We need to wiretap the whitehouse. Now, That would be interesting.
Keep writing...keep calling.
Make it clear...this SHIT has got to stop!
No justice, no peace.
Russ is a real leader unlike that corporatist from Nevada
I truly think that it really doesn't matter what we find out anymore. You can't arrest a criminal when your arms are made of sponge. The Democratic leadership, with the seeming exception of only a few, like Senator Feingold, have proven themselves weak and spineless time and time again. Harry Reid has turned out to be nothing more than a sideshow distraction... a ray of hope that ultimately manifests itself to be nothing more than an oncoming train. Feingold gets now backing from his spineless constituents for fear they may rub someone wrong. I really pray day after day that somehow, someway, the USA will find justice to the atrocity that IS the bush administration.
Doggiebobo @ 4:
Actually Darth Cheney is just preparing himself for the fires of Hell that he will experience permanently in the afterlife.
I emailed my senators Baucus and Tester. Tester's lack of participation was shameful, considering he ran on repealing the Patriot Act. Baucus- I kinda expected it.
I had an internship with Mr. Feingold this past summer at his Middleton office.
When Russ speaks, he is to be heard by all peoples, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
Mr. Feingold is the LEAST partisan member of the senate, and the one who will fight the HARDEST for our country, it's constitution, and the We The People.
I am truly proud to say I have served the finest member of the modern Senate. I am also proud to be from Wisconsin, a state which has always has a progressive agenda.
Thank you for your great words Mr. Feingold, I look forward to the next time you speak on Our behalf.
Can't wait til my birthday in June so I can finally get registered and vote for this guy instead of just sitting by and singing his praises.
/proud, proud, PROUD Wisconsinite
Because I always feel it's important to add this when talking about Sen. Feingold. He was the only Senator to vote against the original Patriot Act. He said the reason he voted against it was because he read it and didn't like what it said.
One must wonder, is he the only one who actually read it before voting.
The Eisenhower building houses one of cheney's offices that he uses for ceremonies and such. Both he and the chimp were in the white house when the fire started. So you will all be happy to hear, they are safe and sound.
Standing for the Constitution is SO sexy! ;)
pissed off patricia @ 13:
Yeah, but rumor has it that Cheney was seen, just before fire started, running out the
back door of the bldg., heading towards W/H so he could report to bush-lite that the
"job has been done"...
Fade @ 3:
the Old OEB building --- actually the offices of the Vice President... write your own joke about the fires of damnation in...3...2...1...
Why do they keep using "... an Administration that does not respect the law..."?
Whay not say "... a criminal Administration..."?
Plain talk is what is needed. Not semantic parsing.
Bush and his junta are criminal thieves, traitors and murderers. The next President should be making prosecutions his top priority. Prison time for all law breakers.
come on folks ,so they give you a little victory with this fisa shit and you cum all over yourself while they fuck you with giveing bush 70 billion dollars for more fucking war!!!jesus christ after xmass theyll come back and cram it up your ass again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LibertyLover @ 16:
The President must be freebasing again.
Doggiebobo @ 15:
Oh, I missed that part. ;)
[deleted]
It is a beautiful old building. I hope there isn't a lot of damage to any original parts that might be in there.
Eisenhower Executive Office building
[refers to deleted post]
Yes.
Eisenhower Executive Office building
I'm so spoiled. That's my senator.
pissed off patricia @ 22:
it could have been worse , thoes ahem !terrorists on 911 could have been smarter and applyed all thier energy destroying every major building in dc instead of two obsolete buildings in ny!!!!!!!!!!!!
Joe O. @ 2:
We've already had that. It was called the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
You Wisconsin people are so lucky to have Feingold as your Senator. I'm stuck with Kit Bond. Yippee!! What would it take to toss out Harry Reid and get the likes of Feingold or Dodd as the leader of the Senate???
Basically what the retroactive immunity bill is this. Now you can't sue AT@T, Google, etc for invasion of privacy.
The RepubliConsters remember well when Ralph Nader sued GM for invasion of privacy, which ended up being the biggest damages award to a citizen in U.S. history and set a trend.
Anyway, every one of us who has ever criticized Bush Junior and his cronies on the internet is on "The List".
That you can be assured of that.
Privacy? LOL right.
My Senators are bush's BFF, Martinez and Bill, which way is the wind blowing today, Nelson.
Emailing them with a request is like pissing in the ocean, it doesn't change anything.
Makes me very happy that Katherine Harris didn't win bill Nelson's seat.
OT-Time's Person of the Year? Al Gore? Nope. They picked Putin!
While this action was successful, it was merely a defensive firefight. If we're going to win, we have to take the battle back to the subhuman filth that created the problem.
Impeach Bush! Impeach Cheney! Impeach them now!
IgnoranceIsNotBliss @ 32:
That's for sure!
I don't see why we should be praising that they finally did what they are suppose to do, protect the constitution.
These politicians should have shut this down, and not even discussed a bill like this, same goes for the patriot act.
The people shouldn't have to beg our representatives to protect our freedoms.
liberalista @ 33:
Putin?! WTF?! What has actually done in the past year? The Person of the Year is supposed to be someone who made the biggest global impact (positively or negatively) in the past year.
SKY @ 29:
Could be worse....we here in Texas have John Cornass and Kay B. Hutchinson.
False prophet+false patriot=The white house and the Republican party(rightwing)
tyree @ 18:
Unfortunately I agree 100 percent with this. I don't trust Reid and I'm certain the corporatists will think of a "compromise" that will inject this back into the bill come January.
As an aside, I wonder what part of the Democratic "secret plan" to not give the chimp any more money for his war without a withdrawl timetable the $70,000,000,000 comes from?
Blue Buddha @ 37:
I agree. I can't imagine how POTY is not Al Gore. Unless of course it's because Time is pandering to it's more and more right wing readership by stirring up their Cold War juices.
After hearing that speech, Barbara Bush went on TV and said she's proud of her son......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-zLsZmF3Q
I read the Time article on Putin and it sounds to me like they're recognizing how successful he's been at rebuilding Russia over the last 8 years. It's sort of in the spirit of the title (like Academy Lifetime Achievement Awards) so I can see where they're coming from.
Also, they don't want to seem like weak 'followers' of the Al Gore bandwagon.
Feingold is pretty awesome. I'm very happy to have him as my Senator.
Blue Buddha @ 37:
ShouldBeWorking @ 43:
This will not sit well with O'Lielly.
IgnoranceIsNotBliss @ 45:
If it doesn't involve FoBP (fear of brown people), lies, torture, hate speech, or tax cuts then it's not likely to sit well with BillO.
Bravo to Dodd, Feingold and any other senator who helped in this effort. What I don't hear mentioned enough and that should be played-up is that apparently, the companies were doing this prior to Sept. 11th. This makes this even more egregious.
Why in the name of all that is holy is this man not President of the United States of America? Could we do any better than Russ Feingold? I don't think so.
the bills still allow boosh to break the law. so what's with the posturing?
Wexler’s Impeachment “Petition?”…
can’t see the signatures…
links to contribute page…
signs you up to help with his campaign for re-election…
link to contribute side by side with the “petition”…
…and Wexler is not a co-sponsor of HR 333…
hmmmm, makes you think, huh?
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/wexlers-impeachment-petition-...
IgnoranceIsNotBliss @ 25:
Be sure to read the comments, they're fun.
Feingold is an outstanding Senator. His speech on this is very compelling, however, I think that Dodd still makes the best point when he states that Bush will put US citizens in harms way when he vetos this bill to protect telecommunications companies profits.
That is sickening.
Noam chomsky says we really shouldn't be surprised "The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening."
"The grassroots involvement on this issue has been nothing short of amazing."
That's the power of the blogs baby!
Now that we have one month, if the blog owners could now join together and be even stronger in January to ensure there is NO retroactive immunity for those telecoms who have broken the law.
The real victory comes in January if we all do our part.
testing
I sent Senator Feingold a warmhearted thank you. I am very proud of Senator Wyden, also, from Oregon. He's really been coming through a lot, lately. Gordon Smith should borrow a clue from him.
It is comforting to know that there are still some in DC that we can respect and rely on to do the right things for us. There are far too few but I watched c-span and listened to Dodd, Kennedy, Feingold, Wyden, Boxer and the rest and heard such real passion and saw people who understood exactly what their job requires of them.
Bluesage @ 56:
yeah furnishing bush with 70 billion dollars!
I called his office and thanked him. I have found that e-mail only reaches about 25% of the time-I get responses that basically state either "If you are not a resident of the State" or you just get an Automatic Response To Pacify The People like Senator Feinstein's "Dear Friend".
With 300,000,000 Americans, why can't you find a few more people like Feingold. Instead we get this sewer slime, like 9iu11iani and Huckabee rising to the surface. I mean, is it that hard to find decent Americans????
Fade @ 3:
It's smoke from all their pants (which are on fire).
Fire?!? I always thought it was a shame it didn't get hit by an airplane.
Was there really a victory? Didn't Harry Reed just close down debate on the bill for a later date, probably when no one is paying attention.
And I hear Bush just got some more non existant money for his illeagal wars. Thanks Congress, Thanks Democrats.
Feingold was in there pluggin but Chris Dodd is the real American hero in this drama... His high caliber address before the Senate on the reasons why retroactive immunity to the telecom was ill-advised was right on the money... He's an eloquent speaker and a pretty smart guy to boot... We could do worse them to elect this guy President... Interestingly, he was the only dem presidential candidate who put the interests of the country (and the constitution) above his personal interests (he abandoned the campaign trail to do this)... Isn't that refreshing? Hip Hip Horray, thank you Senator Dodd... I'll be contacting my Senators in January to prod them to offer you their more visible support when this again comes before the Senate for debate... Thanks, again.
Thank you so much for all you do Senator Feingold
How can America be free if the government isn't free to listen to our phone calls?
There are only a handful of Senators with integrity and spine. Russ is one of them.
Edwin @ 59:
The ruling corporate elite doesn't want anyone with talent, integrity or intelligence.
Hence the present "leading" candidates. The best are the ones being excluded from debates, marginalized or not mentioned by the MSM, or as in the case of Nader in 2004, being denied even the chance to watch the debate when he had a valid ticket for an off site monitor location.
This is NOT a Democracy, it is a corporate fascist system.
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