Glenn Greenwald: Jay Rockefeller’s Unintentionally Revealing Comments

[babylonsister]

Jay Rockefeller’s Unintentionally Revealing Comments
by Glenn Greenwald


As the Senate takes up “debate” today over granting the President new warrantless eavesdropping powers and granting immunity to lawbreaking telecoms, the individual who joined forces with Dick Cheney to get this ball rolling, AT&T’s personal Senator Jay Rockefeller, made some comments yesterday to The Politico that illustrate just how twisted and dishonest is the thinking of telecom immunity advocates. First, there is this:

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is predicting the Senate will grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies as Congress takes up reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). . . “I think we will prevail,” Rockefeller said on Wednesday, adding that he hoped the Senate will finish the bill by next week. The FISA legislation expires in February, and both President Bush and GOP congressional leaders have demanded new legislation be in place by that time.

“It’s a pretty bad idea to appear cocky,” Rockefeller noted. “I am not pessimistic.”

For an entire year, Congressional Democrats have won absolutely nothing. They’ve given in to the White House on every one of its demands. Yet here is Jay Rockefeller strutting around declaring Victory and having to battle against feelings of cockiness because, finally, he is about to win something. But ponder the “win” that is giving him these feelings of immense self-satisfaction. Is he finally accomplishing what Democrats were given control of Congress to do: namely, impose some checks and limits on the administration? No. The opposite is true. Rockefeller is doing the bidding of Dick Cheney. The bill that he is working for is the bill the White House demanded. Rockefeller is supported by the entire Bush administration, urged on and funded by the nation’s most powerful telecoms, and is backed by the entire GOP caucus in the Senate.

When Rockefeller smugly announces that he “thinks we will prevail,” the “we” on whose behalf he is so proudly speaking is Bush and Cheney, lawbreaking telecoms, and all Republican Senators. The only parties whom Rockefeller is so happily “defeating” are civil liberties groups and members of his own party. That is what is making him feel pulsating sensations of excitement and “smugness.”

He is being allowed to win only because he is advancing the Bush agenda and those of his largest corporate donors, and waging war against members of his own party, acting to destroy the allegedly defining values of that party. Yet he’s so desperate to feel like he’s won something that this is enough to cause him to strut around giddily battling feelings of cockiness over his impending “win.” At least he’s being honest here about whom he represents.

Next we have this:

Rockefeller also rejected a potential compromise being floated by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would let a secret FISA court decide whether the telecom companies, who are being sued for going along with official requests from the Bush administration to cooperate with warrantless surveillance programs, acted properly.

Telecoms already have immunity under existing FISA law where they acted pursuant to written government certification or where they prove they acted in good faith (see 18 USC 2520 (d)). There is no reason that the federal courts presiding over these cases can’t simply make that determiniation, as they do in countless other cases involving classified information. Even Feinstein’s “compromise” is a completely unnecessary gift to telecoms: to transfer the cases away from the federal judges who have ruled against them to the secret FISA court. But even that pro-telecom proposal is unacceptable to Rockefeller (and the administration), because that would still leave telecoms subject to the rule of law. Rockefeller’s only goal is to bestow on his telecom supporters full and unconditional protection from having their conduct — and, by effect, the administration’s conduct — subject to a court of law. Manifestly, that’s the real agenda. That’s why he’s feeling “cocky.”

It gets worse:

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/23/6594/

[conscious evolution]

1. He is a Rockefeller

What else do you expect from him.
His family is one of the reasons the planet is so fucked up right now.

[jeanruss]

5. habeas corpus

I called his office after I saw he voted NOT to re-instate habeas corpus-what is wrong with the people of West Virginia?

[leftchick]

2. this is just incredible

I can't believe I thought he was a good guy once. :(

<snip>

Rockefeller defended the actions of the telecom companies, arguing that the companies received explicit orders from the National Security Agency to cooperate with the super-secret surveillance effort. The West Virginia Democrat said the telecom companies were being “pushed by the government, compelled by the government, required by the government to do this. And I think in the end, we’ll prevail.”

Can someone please tell Jay Rockefeller that we don’t actually live in a country where the President has the definitively dictatorial power to “compel” and “require” private actors to break the law by “ordering” them to do so? Like all other lawbreakers, telecoms broke the law because they chose to, and profited greatly as a result. That telecoms had an option is too obvious to require proof, but conclusive proof can be found in the fact that some telecoms did refuse to comply on the grounds that doing so was against the law. There is a branch of Government that does have the power to compel and require behavior by private actors. It’s called “the American people,” acting through their Congress, who democratically enact laws regulating that behavior. And the American people enacted multiple laws making it illegal (.pdf) for telecoms, in the absence of a warrant, to enable Government spying on their customers and to turn over private data. Rockefeller’s claimed belief that we live in a country where private companies are “compelled” to obey orders to break the law is either indescribably authoritarian or disgustingly dishonest — probably both.

Finally, we have this bit of pure mendacity:

Rockefeller added: “If people want to be mad, don’t be mad at the telecommunications companies, who are restrained from saying anything at all under the State Secrets Act. And they really are. They can’t say whether they were involved, they can’t go to court, they can’t do anything. They’re just helpless. And the president was just having his way.”

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

3. You know, I expected compromise NOT COMPLETE SACRIFICE,...

,...on a matter of such great constitutional weight.

:mad: I'm pretty pisssed off at him, myself!!!

[Junkdrawer]

4. Rockefeller doesn't work for Cheney....

Cheney works for Rockefeller and the other families that OWN America.

[femrap]

7. Yep...

It's the Rothschild/Rockefellers, stupid!

[Junkdrawer]

8. People just can't wrap their heads around the IMMENSE wealth of this family.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2763642&mesg_id=2763708

[femrap]

10. Inherited wealth of

this magnitude is dangerous. And with the Extreme Wealthy reproducing with other Extreme Wealthies, I think the gene pool needs some chlorine.

I wish we could make a comparison that would make sense to people...something like, if I (income of $50,000 and assets of $100,000 with NO DEBT) give $100 to a charity, what amount would a Rockefeller have to give so he would feel the financial pinch as much as I?

[Supersedeas]

6. he was also one of the member of the gang of 8 who were 'briefed' on the program, thus

his silence for so long

[Selatius]

9. Know that Vanderbilts, Morgans, Rockefellers, and others own America. In time, you will come to ...

accept them as your master. There will be a painful transition to that stage, but know that the plantation master cares for you and wishes you the best. Slaves who do not love their master must be corrected.

:sarcasm:

[tuckessee]

11. Does that include Anderson Vanderbilt? n/t