I saved my letters to Sens Dodd and Feingold for last; it was refreshing to say, “thank you.”

Craig, the responses you received are similar to the ones I’ve received.

We citizens of whatever political stripe cannot let this immunity go forward. I’ve written my Senators and my Representative; called them as well. Please, everyone get onboard with this.

i propose, to ensure their attention, that all correspondence with congress be in writing, with a $100 attached… MINUS the serial numbers.
indicate that a substantive response will earn them an envelope with the numbers.

I am writing to you, again, as your constituent regarding S2248 (FISA, amendments). I am also writing after receiving Senator Feinstein’s email dated 1/9/2008 at the time of 9:24AM, which spoke to the alternative offered by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I am copying Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi as they are the Congressional leaders of the respective houses and think they should be aware of my writing. And I’m copying Senator Dodd, as it was his willingness to put Constitutional principle above practical regarding his Presidential bid that ought be the byword for how members of Congress engage in politics. The copies to Senator’s Obama and Clinton are to remind them of Senator Dodd’s example. And Senator Feingold as he has made comments I will be quoting.

There is a real need to mention certain points regarding this legislation and how it came about that do not pertain to the need to enhance surveillance regarding ‘terrorists’.
1. September 11th, 2001 did NOT occur because this legislation wasn’t in place; simply stated, it occurred because of the failure of the Bush Administration to act on warnings (especially those of foreign governments) and the lack of co-ordination between and within various ‘intelligence’ agencies.
I state this in particular because of the statement by Mike McConnell, Director of National Security, that, in regard to Mohamed Atta, “Terror network al-Qaeda understood that, and that’s why 9/11 happened, in my view.”, referencing FISA. He asserted to a group of students in St. Mary’s City, Missouri, that “the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, were caused by weak domestic wiretapping laws.” Such a blatantly false statement cannot go unchallenged and says to me he is but another political hack installed by the Bush Administration because Congress would not challenge the appointment.
2. To think that ‘terrorists’ are not aware of the technical prowess of the United States to monitor communications simply ignores reality. Do any of you remember the United Nations scandal where the United States was ousted for planting bugs and tapping phone lines in the offices of the United Nations? And that an official of one of the countries bugged indicated that ‘everyone assumes that communications are monitored and take the necessary steps to ensure private communications?”
3. The ‘Protect America Act’ was pushed through by the Bush Administration as part of its strategy to avoid culpability for knowingly violating the law and, as you know, is EXTREMELY flawed legislation. And EVERY time civil liberties are sacrificed on the altar of ‘security’, that is but another victory for terrorism.
4. ANY legislation that Bush doesn’t concur fully with gets a ‘signing statement’ that according to his legal advice allows him the discretion to do what he please regarding legislation he signs. And NO ONE in Congress has taken him to court to regarding such legal reasoning. Adding amendments to legislation is inviting the Bush Administration to interpret such legislation as he sees fit and the ‘exclusivity’ Senator Feinstein has introduced will simply be swept aside via ‘signing statement’.
5. It is now been reported that the Bush Administration started the processes by which all communications in the United States –regardless of status or citizenship- just two weeks after taking office in 2000. This ‘should’ tell you all you need to know of the real intent in pushing for legal immunity within the changes to the FISA. How many times do you need to be lied to before you ‘get it’?
Putting aside the incredibly specious reasoning that allowing citizen lawsuits to proceed would bankrupt the telecommunications companies I would like to mention Senator Feingold’s statements he has posted online. “Granting this kind of amnesty is totally unjustified since these companies already receive immunity if they follow the law. And it’s not as if these companies don’t have lawyers to tell them what’s legal and what’s not – especially when these laws have been on the books for 30 years. It is particularly outrageous that companies think they deserve immunity for allegedly participating in an illegal program when we found out last week from the DOJ Inspector General that telecom carriers are perfectly willing to shut off wiretaps – including a foreign intelligence wiretap – when the FBI doesn’t make its payments on time.”

These telecommunication companies have very skilled lawyers and, given the example of Qwest rejecting such ‘assistance’, knew that such actions were against the law (or should have, given their expertise). And I also will mention that it has been drummed into my head since I was much younger that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. Even the Unified Military Code of Justice has provisions within it for not following an unlawful order.

Senator Feingold also posted “But both the so-called Protect America Act (PAA) – the law we passed last year – and the Intelligence Committee bill go far beyond addressing that issue. They grant unprecedented powers to the executive branch to engage in widespread surveillance involving Americans, with virtually no judicial involvement.”

The ongoing assault by the Bush Administration on the U.S. Constitution’s system of checks and balances in the name of the “Unitary Executive Theory” MUST be stopped and it is Congress’ failure to combat this flawed theory that is part of the reason why citizens hold Congress in such low regard.

Again quoting Senator Feingold, “The Intelligence Committee bill doesn’t give adequate authority to the FISA court to do what it is supposed to do – operate as an independent check on the executive branch. “ Given that the House passed FISA update AND the Senate Judiciary Committee’s bill that does NOT include immunity for the telecommunication companies, one has to express wonder why Senator Reid brought the Intelligence Committee’s bill to the floor. Perhaps it was for the same reason Senator Reid refused to bring forth a bill to address removing the tax breaks from the hedge fund and private equity managers currently in force.

IF ‘bi-partisan’ means granting immunity to the telecommunications companies, then such is NOT ‘bi-partisan’ but strongly partisan in favor of corporate donors and a desire to avoid addressing the lawlessness that the Bush Administration has consistently engaged in.

The “Protect America Act” SHOULD be allowed to lapse and if you think that the Intelligence Community won’t conduct ‘much-needed surveillance’ on non-U.S. citizen’s outside of the country without authorizing legislation, allow me to remind you of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition and ‘black’ prisons outside of the country, both of which violate human rights and international law. As well as the imposition of torture in violation of U.S. law.

The one amendment to the Senate Judiciary Committee bill that makes any sense is that which extended privacy protections for United State’s citizens no matter their locale. An amendment turning over the legality of the immunity protection to the FISA court (a ‘secret’ court) is the last thing this country needs, specifically more ‘secrecy’.

The bottomline is that the House and Senate legislation that DOES NOT provide immunity but DOES provide the ‘tools’ the Bush Administration has said are necessary for the ‘war on terror’ (do any of you ever wonder why everything that is an issue in the U.S. becomes a ‘war on’?) are ALL –except the amendment that extends extraterritoriality- that needs to be passed.

If Bush wants to veto such legislation and Republican’s won’t join in a bi-partisan manner to override such a veto, then it is the Bush Administration and Republican Senators and Representatives who are to blame for not acting in a manner that supports ‘national security’. And the Democratic Party needs to be vociferous on that point.

The ‘message’ that is currently being presented to the citizenry of the United States is that, if immunity is granted, then, once again, Congress has failed in it’s responsibility to the citizenry in favor of corporate donors and a desire to avoid addressing the lawlessness that the Bush Administration has consistently engaged in. And no amount or type of amendments will overcome that idea.

The citizenry of the United States has even a lower opinion of Congress than they do of the Bush Administration and this current example of Congress putting ‘practical’ above ‘Constitutional principle’ and letting the Bush Administration ‘skate’ on it’s illegal practices is but the latest example of why that opinion is so low. If immunity is granted, it will only hasten the demise of this representative form of a republic.

And bluntly speaking, the chances of me or anyone else being harmed from driving on the California freeways is many orders of magnitude greater than being harmed by a ‘terrorist attack’. And people know that fact; governing from a basis of fear is no longer acceptable to the citizenry of the U.S. and Congress needs to realize that. It’s time to stop making a mockery of the words ‘land of the free and home of the brave’.

In closing, I implore you to NOT provide any immunity to the telecommunications companies (don’t they have enough help from the FCC already?) and put the onus on the Bush Administration and Republican’s of both Houses for not passing legislation said to be ESSENTIAL for ‘national security’.

I would also ask that this missive be read on the floor of the House’s and entered into the respective Congressional Record(s).

I would also recommend that everyone who receives this missive read David Cay Johnston’s book “Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You with the Bill.”
The citizenry of the United States have ‘awoken’ and, paraphrasing the character in the movie ‘Network’, “We are mad as hell, and aren’t going to take this anymore!”
Sincerely,
Bruce Sims