Blue Dog Democrats May Give Bush Victory on SpyingBy Matt Renner
March 6, 2008
Democrats in the House of Representatives - teetering on the verge of compliance with the spy power demands of the Bush administration - have devised a plan that would give the president everything he has demanded, while keeping the majority of Democrats' fingerprints off the most controversial elements of the proposed legislation.
The bill at hand is an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a law intended to prevent misuse of surveillance powers by presidents in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The legislation passed the Senate with the majority of Democrats voting against it. The bill evoked heated disagreement between conservative and progressive Democrats because it would broaden presidential spy powers and would grant retroactive legal immunity for a broad range of companies that may have broken the law by participating in the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance programs.
Civil liberties groups and progressive members of Congress oppose immunity because it would cut off around 40 lawsuits against the telecoms - court cases that have been the only significant source of information about the administration's surveillance activity. However, House Democratic leaders face mounting pressure to grant telecoms immunity, from the Bush administration and from members of the Blue Dog coalition - a group of conservative Democrats who often cross the aisle to vote with Republicans on legislation framed by the Bush administration as pertaining to national security.
"A capitulation on this point would destroy a small flickering flame of hope by many citizens that Congress was not entirely in the pocket of lobbyists and could on this one occasion stand firm on a point of legal principle. If the companies and the White House were acting lawfully as they insist, there is nothing to fear from judicial review. If not, it is important to establish that this was an unlawful program," constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley wrote on his web site.
In what appears to be a calculated political maneuver, a plan has been proposed that would break the bill into two parts, allowing Democrats who are opposed to the immunity provision to vote against it without actually killing the bill.
The plan, floated on February 29 by an unnamed "senior Democratic aide," would separate the part of the bill that expands spy powers from the section that grants retroactive legal immunity for companies involved in surveillance. Progressive Democrats who have been working to remove the immunity provision could vote against it without actually killing the bill. Or, as the unnamed aide said, the plan would "allow Democrats to register their objections to the immunity provision," according to The Los Angeles Times report.
If the bill is split into two pieces, conservative Blue Dog Democrats in the House could join with Republicans to pass the immunity provision, handing the Bush administration a victory while providing political cover for progressive Democrats and the Democratic leadership. Bush has warned repeatedly that he will veto any FISA update that does not include retroactive immunity for telecoms.
Each and every one of these House members should be challenged for his/her seats this year.
According to this article, with 69% of likely 2008 voters opposed to granting retroactive immunity for the telecoms, none of these dismal failures should retain their seats.
They are traitorous fools.
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