Why is George Bush so concerned with this FISA bill?

[Old and In the Way]

There's plenty of protection to cover legitimate warrants, even after the fact. So why has he got this as the #1 priority for his administration?

Is it because he's broken the law? Spying on Americans, even before 9/11? Because he knows that this immunity will cover him?

I'll take my chances with the current law. Telco's should have pushed back on his illegal spying, like Q-West.

He's desperate to get his immunity. This is the Bush Personal FISA Security Act. Don't give this criminal cover.

[HereSince1628]

1. 2 things maybe

As you say Cheney wants W to want immunity for both of them.

And the Cheney administration wants to build on their legacy--the Admin that destroyed the Constitution and thereby ended our First Republic.

[bdamomma]

2. because he is covering his sorry a$$

and treating us like suspects. Someone get the cuffs please and arrest him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ThomWV]

3. Because the information that will be disclosed will lead to his downfall

[seemslikeadream]

4. He's offering to stay to help pass it

postponing his trip to Africa


He's a bit concerned I think

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

8. I was thinking,...",...in power to help pass it".

x(

[havocmom]

5. If the TeleComms get sued, they stop cooperating with cheney

If that happens, cheney can't get the info he needs to keep blackmailing legislators and others in powerful positions to protect his criminal gang... and the profits go bye-bye

It's all about CYA and Big $$$

[truebrit71]

6. Because he was illegally spying BEFORE 9/11and the Telecoms will throw him to the wolves...

...before they admit any corporate culpability.

There is no other explanation.

[booley]

7. The lawsuits are the best chance to finally uncover just what the telecoms did

Stop that and we will probably never really know just how bad it really is.

And the cons can keep living in denial, saying that the rest of us are just making stuff up. And we will be set up for when these guys go even further.

[moondust]

22. Bingo.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Lawsuits In The Waiting

I think I read 50 or so are pending about people whose rights were violated and want justice.

The telcoms are shielding this regime's criminality...they're the firewall.

Be assured this regime never fights this hard unless its their own bacon on the line.

[leftofthedial]

10. the wiretaps yield his blackmail protection from future prosecution

and *just maybe* might yield grounds for an overt coup and martial law.


he clearly is desperate AND he clearly has some kind of hold over the "democrats" who fucked us out of our votes in 2006.

[B Calm]

11. Immunity for corporations breaking the law = The Best Government

Corporations can buy!

[bdamomma]

12. yup, it's all about dominance of the corporations and eff the

Constitution. I hate these people.

[zonmoy]

13. probably a key part of the cabals plan to eliminate the last of the constitutions protections.

[Hepburn]

14. Because he is worried about coveing his sorry ass. n/t

[mojowork_n]

15. Bush is asking for permanent immunity, to escape all possible liability.

MSNBC is giving this a lot of "breaking news" coverage, right now.

The Democrats are saying there's no chance there'll be any lapse, or change, to the security measures that have been in place, any time soon.

Nothing at all will change for months -- the language of the existing protections already includes continuing protection, even with the failure to negotiate an extension.

What the Republicans want is new language that makes the immunity much more difficult for any future president to remove. So that their possible exposure to prosecution, for illegal activities that may have already been committed, can't be erased, as soon as next year.

There's more here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2858703

Excerpt:

"...Warrantless wiretap---domestic spying---is a great big blackmail scam. One of the very first things that Dick Cheney did when he began to recreate Dick Nixon’s attempts to found a totalitarian regime was institute domestic spying. By now, we all know that this plan did not start after 9/11. The administration went to the telecoms early in 2001 and told them it wanted to be able to intercept phone calls, emails, faxes. We know that Verizon and AT&T went along with the plan and Qwest refused on the grounds that it was illegal. Verizon and AT&T have been well rewarded by the FCC. Qwest has been punished with criminal prosecutions. From a whistle blower, we know that every communication within the United States was funneled through..."

Besides the *domestic* spying, it's just possible that some of those wiretaps connected overseas. Valerie Plame + Sibel Edmonds:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3179368

"...Valerie Plame Wilson Describes Sibel Edmonds Disclosures as 'Stunning'

Says She Been Following Recent Blockbuster Series in British Paper Concerning U.S. Nuclear Secrets Espionage, Allegations That Her Cover Company, Brewster Jennings, Was Exposed by a Former High-Ranking State Department Official as Long Ago as 2001...

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson says the recent disclosures in the UK's Sunday Times concerning the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to the foreign black market, as aided by high-ranking government officials, are "stunning."

The previously covert agent, who had worked in the agency's counter-proliferation division for years, monitoring traffic in the nuclear black market under the guise of a cover company named Brewster Jennings, until being outed by Administration officials, was asked about the recent series of explosive stories in the British paper...

The *nuclear proliferation angle*, which ties Valerie Plame to Sibel Edmonds, also brings up other covert (suppressed?) issues, possibly related to recent events in Turkey and Central Asia.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2860234

Excerpt:

New York Times--ISTANBUL, Nov. 30 — A Turkish passenger jet crashed in the mountains of western Turkey early Friday, killing all 57 people on board, including several prominent nuclear physicists on their way to a conference, Turkish authorities said.

The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 operated by Atlasjet, an airline based in Istanbul, took off from Istanbul and disappeared from radar shortly before it was due to land at the airport in Isparta. It crashed about seven miles from the airport, near the town of Keciborlu, the authorities said. The cause of the crash was unclear. The weather was good, airline officials said.

The plane crashed in an area that was not on its scheduled route, according to Semsettin Uzun, the governor of Isparta Province. “We don’t understand how it landed there,” he said...

Other nuclear scientists were recently kidnapped in Pakistan, and also disappeared, perhaps conveniently. That's at the top of that link. Also:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2855600

Excerpt:

"On 22 January, Turkish police arrested 33 individuals, some connected with the military, in the largest concerted action against the "deep state" – that shadowy underworld linking extremists and criminals from the spheres of military, political, judicial and the academy. Some were accused of belonging to an ultranationalist group, Ergenekon, that was allegedly "preparing a series of bomb attacks aimed at fomenting chaos ahead of a coup in 2009 against Turkey's center-right government, whose European Union-linked reforms are opposed by ultranationalists." The ultranationalists (who also distrust the Erdogan government for its alleged Islamist agenda) were plotting to assassinate prominent cultural figures, such as Nobel-prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, journalist Fehmi Koru, and possibly Kurdish politicians.

The deaths of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, two Italian priests and three Protestant missionaries have already been blamed on ultranationalists associated with the Ergenekon group...

...With all those genies out of the bottle, they could bring attention back to some of the troubling questions never properly addressed by the 9/11 Commission. (I'd say, go to D.U.'s 9/11 discussion to follow some of those tracks.

For that matter, some of the links could point back to Democrats:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2856579

Excerpt:

"The UK's Times has already run three bombshell articles on the nuclear black market element in the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds this year, and we are expecting more fallout in the near future as new evidence and witnesses come forward.

In the meantime, another important angle to Edmonds' case has opened up. Earlier this week, the New York Post ran a Page 6 piece, ODD FILM BY HILLARY BACKER, which highlights the close relationship between Hillary Clinton and Chicago-based Turkish businessman Mehmet Celebi.

Celebi, "one of the national leaders of the Turkish-American community in the US," is a key fundraiser for Clinton, and is one of Clinton's Chicago delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention...

[mojowork_n]

16. Oh, I forgot.

The Republicans will look pretty silly, if it comes out that they were actually

intercepting,

recording and

data filtering:

*every single communications transmission*

coming in and going out of the country

(and some juicy, local, domestic -- democratic -- ones as well)

but shucks, when asked for them by Congress, they "lost" all those
White House e-mails on the Attorney General firings.

[malaise]

17. Let me see

Is it because he's broken the law? YES
Spying on Americans, even before 9/11? YES
Because he knows that this immunity will cover him?YES
He's desperate to get his immunity.YES

It's his escape bill. YES

Edit font size

[Frustratedlady]

18. I just heard on CNN that he is thinking of canceling the Africa trip if they don't pass FISA.

He must be very, very concerned about something if he'll do that.

[McCamy Taylor]

19. In civil court, the blackmail uses of this program could come out.

In criminal court, Bush's DOJ can cover up anything, but the DOJ has no control of civil court.

Recall the lengths they went to keep California's Enron suit out of civil court. Getting rid of Gov. Davis, replacing him with Arnold so that he could settle the civil suit before it went into discovery. Discovery would have revealed the role that Bush, Cheney, Rove, White and the Ken Lay hand picked FERC played in facilitating the price gouging of California. In criminal court, the DOJ can keep this from ever coming up. Any witness with knowledge of this can be threatened with prosecution. In civil court, there was too much risk to Bush.

Same in the domestic spying case. Bush can never allow it t get into civil court ever. Even after he is gone. The telecoms probably would not lose money. The judge would say that they were protected because they were doing under orders of the government. But the discovery phase would reveal that more than terror suspects were spied upon. This would look bad for Bush and Co---and it would ensure that Congress would then pass comprehensive legislation to make sure that no one could ever do this again.

[Contrary1]

20. Pardon my ignorance here...

But, if he wanted FISA passed so badly, why isn't the bill just rewritten excluding the immunity clause?

I do know the answer, I'm just wondering why the media isn't reporting it as such.

[McCamy Taylor]

21. KO reports as much. CNN is reporting it that way, too.