Those DEMs and the FISA Update

On Friday, the House passed "the most significant revision of surveillance law in 30 years," and the Senate is expected to soon follow suit. House leaders insisted the bill was a "compromise" with conservatives, but as the New York Times noted, it was actually "a major victory for the White House after months of dispute."

While progressives succeeded in forcing the White House to accept some important concessions, the deal fails to give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the authority to protect law-abiding Americans from being spied on by their government. It also essentially shields telecoms from civil lawsuits for their participation in the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program after 9/11 and almost certainly ensures that the approximately 40 lawsuits that have been filed against telecoms for complying with the administration's illegal spying will be dismissed.

Although both were absent from Washington and did not participate in the negotiations, Sens Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) on Friday offered qualified approval of the compromise. Dennis McDonough, a foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, said that the legislation is acceptable to Sen Obama because the United States Inspector General will ensure accountability. In other words, the Obama campaign's position is now that the duty and power to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, now resides primarily not with the President, not with the Congress or the Courts, but with a bureaucrat created by administrative law whose job is to conduct internal investigations of government agencies.

On March 14, 2008, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity for phone carriers who helped the National Security Agency carry out the illegal wiretapping program without proper warrants. Ninety-four House Democrats voted in favor of this measure -- rejecting immunity -- and then ‘changed’ to vote in favor of the June 20 House bill -- approving immunity. “Why did these ninety-four House members have a change of heart?” asked Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, “Their constituents deserve answers.” MAPLight.org's research department compiled PAC campaign contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint and correlated them with the voting records of all House members who voted on last week’s FISA bill. Here are the findings:

1) $8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems),

2) $4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems),

3) 88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years.

"Campaign contributions bias our legislative system,” said Newman. “Simply put, candidates who take positions contrary to industry interests are unlikely to receive industry funds and thus have fewer resources for their election campaigns than those whose votes favor industry interests."

On Tuesday, Sens Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced the will "oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President's warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans."
(sources listed below)