Anyone watching C Span2?? Dodd on the Floor talking about FISA

[bdamomma]

Dodd is on the floor talking about FISA

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan2_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2

[gateley]

1. Going to it now -- thanks!! nt

[gateley]

2. OOPS - wrong place.nt

?

[bdamomma]

4. it is disgusting, look how low we have gotten

due to this ignorant and arrogant regime we have, and they do not care.

[gateley]

3. This disturbs me --

it's reminiscent of when he filibustered in February. He was practically the only person there.

He seems to be talking about torture now -- ??

[spanone]

43. that's how it's done unfortunately....it's going into the congressional record

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster

[gateley]

49. Yes - another DUer was kind enough to enlighten me on this.

Boy, I'm in awe of Dodd. When he said he's doing it so one day his children and grandchildren will know he stood up and fought for our constitution and rights... gave me chills.

[bdamomma]

5. I hope someone else gets up and defends the Constitution.

[bdamomma]

6. and Pelosi is asking for more debate and passes off to the Senate

she can go to hell too.

[spanone]

7. thanks watching

[bdamomma]

8. Dodd is bringing up everything about torture and rendition.

[bdamomma]

9. kicking this

[spanone]

10. lemme help

[spanone]

11. dodd is giving a great speech

[bdamomma]

12. kicking this again

[gateley]

13. I need your help in understanding something.

Did this come up for a vote on the floor today?

I'm thinking it must have, otherwise Dodd wouldn't be filibustering, right?

[spanone]

15. don't really know? it wasn't reported on any news reports i've seen

it may have come up this evening

[gateley]

19. Usually there are threads following the hearings on DU --

Is my supposition correct, that one doesn't filibuster until a bill comes up for a vote?

I'm also wondering about the statements I read today (here) from Boxer and Feingold -- those were earlier.

It's hard to believe this is actually underway practically unnoticed.

[spanone]

29. this might help

http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/06/24/feingold-dodd-planning-filibuster-of-wiretap-bill/

[slipslidingaway]

14. Thanks, never forget that they also asked for Executive immunity

OT...

Comcast dropped cspan 2 for me a few weeks ago, surely I'm not alone, so even if some people would have watched the Senate, they need to have a digital box for each TV.

[spanone]

16. stream it...here's a link

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan2_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2

[slipslidingaway]

18. Thank you and I am, just making a note of how people will

be less informed

:(

[spanone]

28. very true...

[bdamomma]

17. these Senators will ignore Dodd too.

giving a good case. He is angry.

[slipslidingaway]

20. He was pretty angry back in February as well, I hope they do

not just make this about immunity.

[spanone]

22. ill bet it's a party line vote...thugs will do NOTHING to reign in big business and their donations

big money in them there telecoms

[bdamomma]

23. big money is right.

slimy sleazy criminals

[HCE SuiGeneris]

21. I love his passion. He is a great orator.

[seemslikeadream]

24. Thanks

[Tatiana]

25. He's absolutely nailing everything that is wrong with this bill.

The Judiciary, not the Executive, should be allowed to determine whether the President has exceeded his powers.

[bdamomma]

26. Dodd has the charts up.

[gateley]

27. Where the hell is everybody??

That room should be filled with Democratic Senators showing support for him.

I'm getting angry with all of them who aren't there, regardless of what their "statements" said.

[bdamomma]

32. probably have their hands over their ears.

[slipslidingaway]

30. Qwest did not comply, Nacchio came from AT&T, maybe he

knew the rules

:shrug:

[bdamomma]

31. we have got to get on the phones tomorrow and tell these

Senators that we are ANGRY!!!

[Tatiana]

33. We need to target the Dems who want to vote for this and some Republicans!

Baucus (D-MT)
Casey (D-PA)
Collins (R-ME) - up for reelection; polling shows the Dem candidate closing in on her; might get Chaffee'd
Feinstein (D-CA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Hagel (R-NE) - retiring; he can afford to vote his conscience
Landrieu (D-LA) - up for reelection
McCaskill (D-MO) - not up for reelection; can support filibuster without losing much political capital in her conservative state
Mikulski (D-MD)
Specter (R-PA)
Sununu (R-NH) - up for reelection; trailing Dem badly
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

[bdamomma]

34. oh oh, Whitehouse that's my Senator what the hell is wrong with him?

oh boy, he's going to get a call tomorrow. Dodd is pissed/angry.

[Tatiana]

38. God, I don't know. He knows the law and Constitution.

There isn't any excuse.

[Tatiana]

35. Dodd is getting fired up, now!

Letting a political judgment replace a legal judgment is a grave mistake.

[bdamomma]

39. don't you wish we could plead our case on that floor.

Dodd is good.

[slipslidingaway]

40. Nice but this speech is stll mostly about the immunity provision,

maybe Feingold will take up the rest of the bill.

:shrug:

[Tatiana]

42. No, he is talking about the President not being above the law.

He wants the courts to decide, not the executive branch.

He is emphasizing the co-equal branches of government.

[slipslidingaway]

50. Yes, but what about the rest of the bill that will let the next

President wiretap without the needed protections???

In edit, he is moving in that direction now.


http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/06/why-obama-kinda-likes-fisa-bill-but-he.html

"...Most Americans don't realize that the FISA compromise comes in two parts. The first part greatly alters FISA by expanding the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before. It essentially gives congressional blessing to some but not all of what the executive was doing under President Bush...

Part II, by contrast, is the part that everyone has gotten up in arms about. It creates effective immunity for telecom companies. It makes perfect sense for Obama to criticize this part of the bill. That's because he doesn't need it as much as he needs the first part, and his base really really dislikes it..."

[kiva]

36. Thanks, watching. NT

[spanone]

37. dodd is thru his notes, now he's ranting, this should get good

[bdamomma]

41. dodd is presenting a good case.

the RULE OF LAW. I wish Teddy was there, he would be good too.

[slipslidingaway]

44. 67 senators voted to keep immunity in the bill back in February...

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00015

NAYs ---67
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Wicker (R-MS)

[bdamomma]

46. oh crap, I hope these Senators realize what the hell they are doing

and how many read the Bill?

[slipslidingaway]

52. This was the February vote on the amendment to strip immunity,

they had plenty of time to read that bill.

:(

[kiva]

45. "The idea that the Constitution does not get suspended for vengeance"

GO CHRIS!!!!

[bdamomma]

47. hear that DICK CHENEY!!!!!!!!!!

[gateley]

48. You guys -- read this!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3366625&mesg_id=3366625

[kiva]

51. "Mr. Bush is demanding even more power to spy."

Not President Bush--I'm in love, Senator Dodd!

[slipslidingaway]

53. Obama needs to make a BIG speech on this bill, it will then

be covered in the nightly news, in print and could turn the tide.

Although Obama has said he will vote for the bill regardless of the immunity provision.

:(

[L. Coyote]

54. Deja DU: Are ALL COMMUNICATIONS routed overseas to circumvent US law and the Constitution?

Deja DU: Are ALL COMMUNICATIONS routed overseas to circumvent US law and the Constitution?
Nov-09-07 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2245762

I was told years ago that ALL fiber optic communication traffic was routed overseas so that "everything" was moved outside the protections of the law and Constitution and ANYTHING could be monitored. I thought the idea quite fantastic even though it came from a very reliable source that would know exactly such things. Then, the story of the fiber optic splitters hit my radar. I now see now how easily exactly that, routing ALL COMMUNICATIONS overseas, was accomplished.

Is that Bush's and the Telecom's HUGE crime hidden and covered-up behind this story?

If the telecoms get immunity, will it aid in covering up Bush's crime.
ABSOLUTELY! That is why it is so important to the Rs! Support = obstruction of justice.

Have we arrived at the point in the history of the Bushco junta where
laws passed and people nominated are part of crimes of obstructing justice?

===================
AT&T Whistleblower: Telecom Immunity Is A Cover-Up
By Spencer Ackerman - Nov 7, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004662.php


Earlier today we flagged that Mark Klein, who uncovered a secret surveillance room run by the NSA while employed as a San Francisco-based technician for AT&T, is in Washington to lobby against granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies. In an interview this afternoon, Klein explained why he traveled all the way from San Francisco to lobby Senators about the issue: if the immunity provision passes, Americans may never know how extensive the surveillance program was -- or how deeply their privacy may have been invaded.

"The president has not presented this truthfully," said Klein, a 62-year old retiree. "He said it was about a few people making calls to the Mideast. But I know this physical equipment. It copies everything. There's no selection of anything, at all -- the splitter copies entire data streams from the internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything."

What Klein unearthed -- you can read it here -- points to a nearly unbounded surveillance program. Its very location in San Francisco suggests that the program was "massively domestic" in its focus, he said. "If they really meant what they say about only wanting international stuff, you wouldn't want it in San Francisco or Atlanta. You'd want to be closer to the border where the lines come in from the ocean so you pick up international calls. You only do it in San Francisco if you want domestic stuff. The location of this stuff contradicts their story .....

=======================
NSA Monitors All Web Traffic, Says Ex-AT&T Employee

NSA Monitors All Web Traffic, Says Ex-AT&T Employee
Tom Corelis (Blog) - Nov 10, 2007
http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+Monitors+All+Web+Traffic+Says+ExATT+Employee/article9620.htm


Felt "forced to the connect the Big Brother Machine" if he wanted to keep his job

Mark Klein, the former AT&T technician and whistleblower who helped kick off the AT&T/NSA eavesdropping scandal, clarified further details regarding what he witnessed while connecting a secret NSA eavesdropping facility: secure room 641A in AT&T’s San Francisco switching center, presumably commissioned by the NSA, received copies of all the traffic its splitters were connected to, including both international and domestic e-mails, web traffic, and phone calls, both from AT&T’s customers as well as other providers.

Previous statements by the government, AT&T and President Bush indicated that the only affected communications are communications relevant to national security, like those of suspected terrorists and suspicious foreign nationals. According to Klein, however, the technology used to connect the secure room was far more democratic, consisting of simple, dumb splitters incapable of any kind of contextual filtering: essentially, room 641A received “a duplicate of every fiber-optic signal routed through facilities.”

Klein, appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann show, told viewers about his personal association with secure room 641A. “When I was a technician, I had the engineering/wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room … I had to know in order to do my job,” he said, “so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied; the entire datastream was copied into the secret room.”

Referring to the equipment itself, Klein states, “the splitter device has no selective capability, it just copies everything. .............

=======================
Interview: AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein on Bush's Illegal Surveillance and Retroactive Immunity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0dJJhLueEg

=======================
NSA Pressured LA Times To Kill Domestic Spying Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOI1VGKcgGY

=======================
November 5th, 2007
AT&T Whistleblower to Urge Senate to Reject Blanket Immunity for Telecoms
Press Conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, November 7
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/05

Washington, D.C. - On Wednesday, November 7, at 10:30am, telecommunications technician and AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein will speak out at a press conference on Capitol Hill, explaining why he is asking lawmakers to reject immunity for telecoms who assisted the Bush administration's spying on millions of Americans.

Klein witnessed first-hand the technology AT&T built to assist the government's domestic warrantless wiretapping program at AT&T's main switching facility in San Francisco. As part of his job at AT&T, Klein connected high-speed fiber optic cables to sophisticated equipment that intercepted communications from AT&T customers and then copied and routed every single one to a room controlled by the National Security Agency (NSA). Klein has provided evidence for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) class-action lawsuit against AT&T for its role in the illegal spying.

"My job required me to enable the physical connections between AT&T customers' Internet communications and the NSA's illegal, wholesale copying machine for domestic emails, Internet phone conversations, web surfing and all other Internet traffic. I have first-hand knowledge of the clandestine collaboration between one giant telecommunications company, AT&T, and the National Security Agency to facilitate the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history," said Klein.

Also speaking at the event Wednesday ...........

=======================
Judge Orders Telecommunications Companies to Preserve Evidence in Government Surveillance Cases
Ruling Advances EFF's Class-action Lawsuit Against AT&T
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/06


San Francisco - A federal judge today ruled on a preservation motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ordering that telecommunications companies must preserve any evidence of collaborating with the government in illegal spying on ordinary Americans.

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the telecommunications companies to halt any routine destruction of documents or to arrange for the preservation of accurate copies. On December 14, each party must provide the court with confirmation that the court's order has been carried out. The court order did not require the government or the carriers to reveal whether or not they had any relevant evidence.

The government and the carriers had opposed the preservation motion, claiming that the government's invocation of the state secrets privilege made it impossible to proceed with a preservation order. In litigation, parties are typically required to preserve all relevant evidence.

For the judge's order:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/393%20order.pdf

For more on the class-action lawsuit against AT&T:
http://www.eff.org/cases/att

===== MORE ======

[jazzjunkysue]

55. Is the great quail shooter scowling from his usual perch? I hope he's hearing

every word and it's giving him a migrain headache.

I hope it raises his blood pressure and his entire head explodes.

[kiva]

56. Says he's wrapping up...NT

[jazzjunkysue]

57. "Gradual, silent encroachments..." on our civil liberties. Beautiful.

[bdamomma]

58. just WoW

Senator Dodd thank you.

[jazzjunkysue]

Now it will be a new item, at least. Thanks, Chris!

[lonestarnot]

59. So adjourned until 9 a.m. to be continued!

[L. Coyote]

60. The Senate stands adjourned until 9:30 tomorrow.

[slipslidingaway]

61. Cloture vote tomorrow morning? Did I hear that right??? n/t

[spanone]

62. thanks for the thread alyce douglas

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

63. If Dodd and Feingold pull this off and prevent this bill coming to a vote

they'll be big, big heros in my book. They'll become the face of the particular Democratic Party that I want to see in power.