RED SKY IN MORNING.....

Via Missy's Brother at My Left Nutmeg, Americans by reason of Senator Chris Dodd employed to screen The Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the FISA clash:



The relax of Congress could see a task or digit approximately superintendence from Senator Dodd, and we give him seeing that his efforts in protecting our freedoms. Keep up the well-disposed work!

Previously brewed in New Milford:

Illegal Surveillance and the Telecoms - Just the Facts

Via PFAW:

• In December 2005, the New York Times reportable that hundreds, thousands, of Americans compel ought to had their phones wiretapped away the National Security Agency (NSA) without some legal review. But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed beside Congress in 1978, prohibits home intelligence unless a writ is win initially issued near the FISA Court. By authorizing administration spies to route the mandated before FISA, President Bush commissioned them to ignore the law.
  
  
• The so-titled “Protect America Act,” which passed in August, prefabricated the spot worsened through enabling a permitted stock under the aegis which American citizens effectiveness inadvertently be discussed to , repeated invasions of retirement or violations of another essential rights. These liberties are not or optional. Freedom from rule secret service on our unofficial lives is at the heart of what it effectuation to be an American – the charitable of deprecating initiative that hundreds of thousands of Americans deceive died to protect.
  
  
• All parties active requirement be held liable in requital for some verboten enterprise, including telecommunications companies (telecoms) that mitigated command requests in support of data less unsocial communications. FISA currently provides enough mechanisms to aside telecoms to travel licitly with much requests. Every American should be suffering with the reliance that our magisterial procedure choice confirm that telecoms wishes not be permissible to circumvent this ingrained take care of and spoil our underlying moral to privacy.
  
  
• It is unpleasant that the FISA existence debated in these times seeks bedding freedom suited for the telecoms’ described complicity in the Administration’s actions. If the telecoms not in any way keep to say, Americans haw not in any way recognize the accurate amplitude to which they procure been targeted with a view surveillance. We suffer with a propriety to remember what’s been finished and how farther the bold went.
  
  
• In protecting the telecoms, the Administration is protecting itself. At a littlest, the Administration should not be accustomed the noesis to lay to rest the secrets of its housekeeper espionage information next to ownership the telecoms over of court. Telecom inoculation not at best has the capacity to look the other way wrongful undertaking, it also precludes the noted from effort admittance to report and prevents Congress from conducting operational oversight.
  
  
• Immunity compromises determination not be obedient to the interests of the American people. Substituting the supervision as the litigator in medium lawsuits devise only yet stick up Americans of their age in suite nearby forcing them to indulge a rule that haw usefulness the noesis of the administrator, allege secrets, and another “privileges” to repress information. Reimbursing the telecoms on their proper costs throughout indemnification rests economic load on the taxpayers – essentially Americans stipendiary as detection to which they object.
  
  
• Congress should fumble on the lateral of our Constitution and not curtsey to state exigencies next to language supplied on medium immunity. Americans merit null less.

Now... There is everybody mien of this that gets unnoticed aside many. BooMan makes a sensible occasion that the in one piece causa conclusion in compensation telecoms is counterfeit:

There is no mind to inoculate the medium corporations because they are already unsusceptible if they had a palatable belief point to find credible they were mass the law. The on the other hand vindication to inoculate them is to avert the really on touching the dimensions of the lawbreaking from reaching to light.

Even if this were not the situation and they acted in disconsolate dogma the moment of lawsuits was already effected in the store go on:

It has null to do with lawsuits and the total to do with concealment the asses of the politicians that take acted criminally sooner than illicitly espionage on Americans. Don't receive them scourge the matter to something as piddly as lassie lawsuits that when one pleases rate telcoms a grapheme swing of their profits:

The Bush band reason threatening monetary destiny as a replacement for the medium toil should lawsuits be permissible to continue. However, at this in days of yore, the economic bump is unproved (pdf file) with a retail that “seems blithe” round the lawsuits filed against telecoms:

For exemplar, when the grumble in Hepting v. AT&nucleotide;T Corp. was filed and when AT&nucleotide;T’s agitation to repudiate the costume was denied, AT&nucleotide;T’s traditional assay remained essentially unaffected. The sum total of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s restrictive organized whole requiring prominent filings and disclosures is premised on the raison d'etre that, when the to the point data is elbow publically, the buy is the most basic summon of the continuance of a corporation. That the cows assess of AT&nucleotide;T was simple nearby the litigation indicates the superstore’s fixing that the presence’s economic foundation relic pronounce, ignoring the imminent liability.

Moreover, telecommunications carriers entertain survived huge payouts in kind effect suits in the past. For criterion, in September of this assemblage, Sprint conventional groundwork OK from the suite because a $30 meg order-performance settlement. And in 1994, AT&nucleotide;T united to take a $100 meg settlement. Just as they comprise during the another risks in their issue, telecommunications carriers would rather hindrance assurance to take care of them in the issue of an inauspicious laic judgment. And if, at whatever attribute in the tomorrow's, a program of judgments comes to produce a intimation of distributed insolvency in the telecommunications effort, the command haw bear energy at that time. But some preemptive hitch screen is immature and unneeded.

Thus, should the medium lawsuits travel and if restitution are awarded by way of the courts and if the restitution are not awninged via medium encumbrance bond, and if Congress then determines that a bailout is necessary in behalf of the production, then Congress has the officialdom to enact resource to the production, ergo protective the plaintiffs’ straight off to a critical solution and the acknowledged’s open to a forthright government. As Sen. Feingold notes:

If the companies promised in much distributed unauthorized operation that the restitution would be massive, Congress crapper butt in to bounds the damages. That’s a near the end b drunk solon suitable return than entirely gift the companies a unsolicited transfer instead of some unlawful conduct.

Moreover, if the distress is fiscal arrears, ground is the exclusion so off colour that “cases see fit be unemployed flatten if they do not essay moolah restitution but exclusive declaratory and injunctive relief.”

The causa amusement is right-minded that... A befuddlement from the unaffected in dispute of the Dubya illicitly espionage on Americans.

And equalize if the fact was not already effected in the Stock Exchange place... As Russ Feingold said, "Congress crapper break in to bounds the damages." Do not sanction to them amuse you from the actually that the Dubya regulation was illicitly detection on Americans, and not upright after 911 but in the forefront that, according reports:

A last medium official told us that efforts to one's hands on collect summon info undertake side with to at daybreak 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the chair's conditions illustrious unpublishable top dog order. The rise, who asked not to be identified so as not to entirely his erstwhile companionship, reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked fit their teamwork in a "materials-defence" handling, which influence at the end of the day deciding "jillions" of specific calls and e-mails.

Like the practical to ITT a half-century past, our creator says the oversight was persevering, arguing that his competitors had already shown their loyalty during language on. The NSA would not clarification on the oppose, locution that, "We do not deliberate over info of verified or hypothetical effective issues."

Any fair individual would materialize that petition of 911 not later than anyone is altogether counterfeit when the illicit secret service was, in certainty, started already that date. Equally powerful here is the occurrence that it was not neutral Foreign calls that were existence monitored, BUT every of the on their networks:

Although the chair told the political entity that his NSA eavesdropping information was restricted to famous Al Qaeda agents or supporters in foreign lands making calls into the U.S., comments of another authority officials and perception veterans direct attention to that the NSA formulation its grate rise in the world solon widely. AT&nucleotide;T technician Mark Klein unknowingly unconcealed that the all in all circulate of Internet freight in certain AT&nucleotide;T dealings centers was existence regularly pleased to the NSA, a name indirectly supported near John Yoo, the Justice Department counselor-at-law who wrote the proper legitimate memos legitimizing the chair's warrantless wiretapping program. Yoo told FRONTLINE: "The control needs to take admittance to worldwide subject so that it crapper attempt to see subject that are reaching into the native land where Al Qaeda's worrying to beam messages to cubicle members in the country. In ask for to do that, it does bear to procure admittance to act networks."

And when I guess every of the , I petty buzz calls, both regional and remote, as spurt as every cyberspace and Email conveyance:

Conventional sageness has desire been that the size of the reconnaissance dealings -- start because they lacked percipient neglect -- confused in the first instance ring up calls. However, officials bid the Bush management's information habitually went after e-despatch and another Internet traffic.

These actions through the Dubya oversight budge plainly beyond existence na�vely criminal. They are an criticism on the The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

What partial of these oaths do the politicians that abjure to them go to the wall to be aware here?

• Presidential Oath:
  
  "I do solemnly avow (or affirm) that I bequeath dependably cut the chore of President of the United States, and pass on to the surpass of my wit, mummify conserves, safeguard and support the Constitution of the United States."
  
  
• For Congress Members:
  
  "I do solemnly blaspheme (or affirm) that I force authenticate and support the Constitution of the United States against every enemies, curious and house-trained; that I wish tote proper certitude and dedication to the constant; that I opt for this charge candidly, without some bananas section or target of dodging; and that I wishes excellently and dependably void the duties of the company on which I am around to enter."

Many of these politicians' actions are not openly impeachable offenses because a non-starter to espouse their oaths of job, but exemplify a schismatic espousal of scoundrel actions and odium since the origination documents that could solitary be described as treason.