When i logged on and brought up a CSPAN2 feed friday morning I was greeted with something no one should have to see or hear in the a.m. without sufficient girding of the loins. Kit Bond.
Shudder.
He was talking FISA.
mcjoan, before whom we all bow down on this issue, was gracious enough to baby me with this set of notes on the amendments
* Four non-controversial amendments will pass on unanimous consent--they won't require a vote. These include Feingold's amendment requiring Congress see FISC rulings for the past five years, Whitehouse and Kennedy amendments allowing for acquisition to continue during government appeal and emphasizing prohibitions on domestic targeting, and a Bond amendment that eliminates a 7-day deadline for the FISC.
* Eight amendments subject to up or down, simple majority votes.
o Two from Bond, the most important one which does loosen current restrictions would allow surveillance without a warrant in cases that involve the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
o The critical telco amnesty amendment by Feingold/Dodd which strips the provision providing for telco amnesty from the current bill--this is going to get two hours of debate.
o Whitehouse-Specter is the follow-up if Feingold-Dodd doesn't pass. It will also get two hours. It substitutes the government for telcos being sued for their participation in the warrantless wiretapping program, but only if the company is first determined by the FISA Court to have cooperated with the Bush Administration reasonably and in good faith.
o Three Feingold amendments that raise the bar for the government to prove that they are after foreign intelligence and one that gives the FISC power to order surveillance stopped if the government's application is deficient.
o A Feingold-Webb amendment that prohibits the use of illegally obtained information. Bulk collection (Feingold): Requires the government to certify to the FISA Court that it is collecting communications of targets for whom there is a foreign intelligence interest.
* Four amendments that require a 60 vote margin. These are Whitehouse's amendment on minimization, the process of weeding out data obtained about U.S. persons and destroying it. This amendment would grant the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the discretionary authority to not only approve minimization rules but to review their implementation. Two from Feinstein that allow FISC to review the AG's declaration that the telcos acted in good faith before they get their immunity and a second that makes FISA the exclusive means of foreign surveillance. Finally, Cardin has an amendment to sunset the law in four years as opposed to six.* Feingold's S 3979, which prevents communication collection if the government knows beforehand that communication is to or from a person believed to be in the U.S.
* Feingold's reverse targeting, S 3913, which prohibits the government from getting around FISA's court order requirement by wiretapping an individual overseas when it is really interested in a person in the U.S. with whom that supposed foreign target is communicating.
* Feingold's Specific Individual Target test, S 3912, which prohibits bulk collection and requires the government to certify to the FISA Court that it is collecting communications of targets for whom there is a foreign intelligence interest.
* Feingold's Use Limits, S 3915: gives the FISA Court discretion to impose restrictions on the use of information about Americans that is acquired through procedures later determined to be illegal by the FISA court.
* Dodd/Feingold's S 3907, which strips telco amnesty from the bill.
* Whitehouse/Specter's substitution, S 3927 which substitutes the government for telcos being sued for their participation in the warrantless wiretapping program, but only if the company is first determined by the FISA Court to have cooperated with the Bush Administration reasonably and in good faith.
* Feinstein's S 3919, which would allow FISC to review the AG's declaration that the telcos acted in good faith before they get their immunity.
And she has several other posts with good call to action information. here is just one.
For those of you who missed it thursday, after the stimulus package voting was finished, the senate blasted through two amendments. 3915 and 3913, the use limits and the reverse targeting amendments respectively, both Feingold's babies and both failed. Badly. Scold your back-stabbing senator if they were one of yours. here is where the voting records can be found.
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Dems voting no:
3915 3913
Inouye Inouye
Lincoln Lincoln
Bayh Feinstein
Landrieu Landrieu
Pryor Pryor
Rockefeller Rockefeller
Johnson Johnson
Carper Salazar
Not Voting: 3913 - Clinton (ugh), Obama (ugh), Nelson and Dorgan
3915 - Clinton, Obama, Nelson
Lincoln switched a no vote to a yes on 3915 at the end when she saw it wasn't going to pass (so i included her on the no list, she's not getting by on this one).
Nelson (NE) came on record saying that even though he missed the vote he would've voted no on both, double ugh.
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Reid had made time for these two amendments. Although he had alluded to there being a third initially, he pulled it within a couple of seconds of saying it. Then, in about a 3 minute span after the first two went down, Bond brought up his and Rock's substitute amnesty amendment and it got tabled, i think, this was chaotic and some of us thought it somehow got voice voted in, but looking over the senate recap it looks like it was brought then tabled before a vote was tallied, someone better on procedure might want to address this.
Reid's announced schedule was friday and monday for debate, tuesday will be votes. He stressed he wanted to finish in time for the expected reconciliation work with the House to be done by Friday's sunset deadline. Importantly, he also reserved 4 hours for Dodd, which should give Dodd his filibuster opening if needed. Nothing happened friday, Bond spoke some in the morning then the muzak played, some folks blathered about nothing, then Reid came out and adjourned the senate until monday. Notably, he set voting to begin on tuesday at 10am. We should be ready to start calling and liveblogging monday morning.
My take on the Bond/Rock sub amnesty amendment, and someone please please correct me if they think otherwise, is that originally this amendment was meant to be held out until after the Dodd amnesty amendment as a way of splitting off potential voters for that. But it looked like Bond wanted to bring it up earlier after seeing how easily Feingold's first two amendments went down, possibly to get that passed then call for cloture to prevent Dodd from filibustering - Call your senators!
And start calling your reps, too. Bush may still veto this sucker even with the Bond/Rock amendment in it, he's said he will, but that may just have been him bluffing to prevent all the other amendments. Either way, we shouldn't count on it. We should start lubing up our reps for when we have to start working them to stand firm on their version of the bill.
SmileySam has a good post update on the House's mustering of the troops to start holding firm on this. Encouraging.
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