So Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-
http://opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00001685&cycle=2006">AT&T) is all twisted in knots because a few of his more progressive colleagues have seen fit to stand in the way (at least briefly) of his soon to be successful attempts to provide criminal immunity to telecommunications companies who have conspired with the Bush administration to conduct illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens.
As we already know, Rockefeller, Chair of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, was among a key group of Democratic leaders that the Bush administration shrewdly kept in the loop on illegal wiretapping - likely so that in the event the illegal spying ever saw the light of day the Democratic Congress, as accessories to the crime, would be neutered from taking any real action.
This we know:
Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration's four-year-old program to eavesdrop—without warrants—on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaida.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8EK2VEO7&show_article=1But some in Congress were informed of the wiretaps and did nothing to stop them. Instead, the ranking Democrat on Senate Intelligence, Jay Rockefeller, wrote a private letter to Vice President Dick Cheney expressing his "lingering concerns" and saying he'd keep it on file for posterity--or more precisely, for posterior-covering.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110007783Now yesterday we learn that there's
more to this program than we humble citizens have yet been told. Rockefeller let slip that not only would the new FISA law cynically provide a get out of jail free card to some of his biggest political contributors, but that it would also
create (or more likely retroactively sanction) an information "dragnet" to capture every bit of data on every network you can think of and hand it over to the National Security Agency. Senator Fascists Little Helper let this little tidbit slip in a speech on the Senate floor. I'd link to the YouTube video but it was pulled down today, presumably for "national security" reasons. Fortunately, Wired has the story (and the broken YouTube link):
In a Senate floor speech, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) inadvertently made plain that the proposed changes to the nation's spying laws radically expand how the government wiretaps inside the United States. Rockefeller was decrying an amendment that would require the government to discard non-emergency evidence if a court later finds that the spying methods violate the law.
Rockefeller makes clear that the impending changes to the law aren't about making it easier for the National Security Agency to listen in on a particular terrorism suspect's phone calls. Instead, the changes are about letting the nation's spooks secretly and unilaterally install filters inside America's phone and internet infrastructure.
Rockefeller, the chief Democratic architect of the changes, explains:
Unlike traditional Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application orders which involve collection on one individual target, the new FISA provisions create a system of collection. The courts role in this system of collection is not to consider probable cause on individual targets but to ensure that procedures used to collect intelligence are adequate. The courts' determination of the adequacy of procedures therefore impacts all electronic communications gathered under the new mechanisms, even if it involves thousands of targets.
-snip
The nation's current batch of politicians -- save for a handful like Rep. Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) -- see no problem in handing this unchecked power to the nation's spooks. They collectively have bought into the lies,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt">FUD and politically-expedient exaggerations deployed by the administration in order to legalize the President's rogue warrant-less spying on Americans.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/sen-rockefeller.htmlI think the time has come for Senator Rockefeller to
shut the fuck up. As a Democrat it makes me sick to my stomach that a member of my own Party is leading this fascist charge.
Rockefeller belongs in jail for his complicity in crimes against the Constitution. He can have the cell next to Cheney. Crimes are crimes. It's as simple as that.