Tuesday, February 12, 2008
FISA: Dodd ready to filibuster conference report
I was just on a conference call with Senator Dodd in the wake of the crushing defeat of his attempt to hold telco-bushco responsible for illegal spying.
Dodd said that the House bill was so much better than the Senate bill that rather than run out the four hours on the Senate floor he is entitled to, it will be best to get into conference with the House and work it there.
But if the bill that emerges from conference has telco-bushco immunity in it, he will "use all the tools available to one Senator" to keep the bill from passing.
(I am no Senate procedure maven, but an attempt to filibuster a conference bill seems very unusual!)
Dodd said there were 18 telcos involved, and that they vacuumed every call, every email, every Web click, every image, that traversed their network in the greatest invasion of privacy in this nation's history.
He said there had been only 29 votes against cloture (previous post cites 31).
He was asked how he explained all the senators who supported illegal spying, and he said (a) that he didn't want to second guess his colleagues' motivations, but also he thought it was, "Dangerous for the country" to be facing a "false choice" between liberty and security.
He said he's seen few issues as important in his quarter-century in the Senate.
Dodd grudgingly supported one amendment, the Whitehouse/Rock/Leahy/Schumer amendment, after all the stronger ones were defeated. This amendment would permit the FISA court to review data gathering procedures retrospectively. Dodd said this is a dangerous expansion of the FISA court's power, that the FISA court was never meant to be an appeals court.
Dodd said that whatever happened on this matter would set precedent for decades to come.
I wanted to ask him about what he expects the dynamics of the conference to be, who the conference committee participants will be, et cetera.
In any case the action now shifts to the House again. Call your representative!
Here's another account of the Dodd call -- and there will be more.
Dodd said that the House bill was so much better than the Senate bill that rather than run out the four hours on the Senate floor he is entitled to, it will be best to get into conference with the House and work it there.
But if the bill that emerges from conference has telco-bushco immunity in it, he will "use all the tools available to one Senator" to keep the bill from passing.
(I am no Senate procedure maven, but an attempt to filibuster a conference bill seems very unusual!)
Dodd said there were 18 telcos involved, and that they vacuumed every call, every email, every Web click, every image, that traversed their network in the greatest invasion of privacy in this nation's history.
He said there had been only 29 votes against cloture (previous post cites 31).
He was asked how he explained all the senators who supported illegal spying, and he said (a) that he didn't want to second guess his colleagues' motivations, but also he thought it was, "Dangerous for the country" to be facing a "false choice" between liberty and security.
He said he's seen few issues as important in his quarter-century in the Senate.
Dodd grudgingly supported one amendment, the Whitehouse/Rock/Leahy/Schumer amendment, after all the stronger ones were defeated. This amendment would permit the FISA court to review data gathering procedures retrospectively. Dodd said this is a dangerous expansion of the FISA court's power, that the FISA court was never meant to be an appeals court.
Dodd said that whatever happened on this matter would set precedent for decades to come.
I wanted to ask him about what he expects the dynamics of the conference to be, who the conference committee participants will be, et cetera.
In any case the action now shifts to the House again. Call your representative!
Here's another account of the Dodd call -- and there will be more.
Technorati Tags: AT&T, Bushco, Constitution, FourthAmendment, Wiretap
Comments:
Do we have any idea who's sitting on that conference committee? My understanding is that it is generally composed of a mix of the House and Senate committees who handled the bill and Leadership. As of yet my attempts a figuring out exactly who has been laborious.
Props to Dodd for such a bold move.
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Props to Dodd for such a bold move.
