Bloodless Coup

Thankyou Senator Dodd for making sure our dedicated agents can't tap an AQ phone without being prosecuted for violating Americans' civil rights if AQ should actually call someone (of course they'd NEVER do that) in the United States. Nice job, Jackass.

Way to catastrophize there, Morris. "No to retroactive immunity" suddenly becomes "not able to tap AQ ever." Riiiiight.

Yeah Marcy D'Arcy - what gives with your totally inaccurate comment?

There's a word I assume you've heard of. It's "warrant". And I doubt the judges of George Bush/John Roberts' judiciary likely are all that slow in providing them when AQ is calling.

But as Binky noted, that stuff's not what Dodd's action was focused on. So ... in the mood to defend Telecom immunity? B/c if you are going to slam Dodd, you might want to slam him for what he's prioritizing.

Binky,
If we have the chance to hear rerrorist's phone calls, and we don't, I call that a BIG miss. How are we going to know which ones aren't important?

Bro,
What you libs don't seem to get is that you can't get a warrant for a call to a phone number never called before, to a throwaway cell phone. By the time we know the call's coming to America, it's too late; anyone listening already broke the law.

As for Dodd, I know his part, it's paying back his supporters, lawfirms such as (according to FEC data) Bernstein Litowitz Berger and Grossmann ($6,000 contribution to Dodd) or Edwards Angell Palmer and Dodge ($5,002.80 contribution to Dodd) or Grippo and Elden ($8,500 contribution to Dodd) or Michaels and May ($7,600 contribution to Dodd) or Ross, Dixon, and Bell ($7,500 contribution to Dodd), any of whom as well as others can now sue telephone companies who release information essential to protecting our homeland from another attack.

Of the almost $30 million given by lawyers and lobbyists so far to '08 presidential candidates, it goes 3 to 1 Democrat, and of the top 25 contributing law firms, only 2 gave more money to Republicans than to the Democrats who torpedoed this immunity. So it may be safe to assume that Dodd's campaign is showing his loyalty to legal firms with hope they'll pump bigger money in his campaign's direction.

You've GOT to be kidding. You are suggesting Dodd would imperil national security for measly 6k or 5k donations. How about the simple notion that he doesn't want firms that broke the law to get off?

And as to your point about terrorist phone calls - 1) again it's not relevant to the telecom immunity issue and 2) supposedly you're going to have some reason to think that x is a ***TERRORIST!*** phone call and 3) as soon as you do then you tap that phone and get a warrant within a few days.

But again none of that is tied to telecom immunity which is simply about letting some big wigs and Bush administration officials avoid jail time or other sanctions for violating federal law. And aren't those who violate the law supposed to be brought to justice for it? I was thinking that that was the American way (you know what the terrorists hate, and all that).

"But again none of that is tied to telecom immunity which is simply about letting some big wigs and Bush administration officials avoid jail time or other sanctions for violating federal law."

I truly hate to get in the way of a liberal love fest (your typical libearl hatred of people who start and maintain businesses that actually employ people and bring us the ability to communicate with each other without having to walk to their house (you're using dehumanizing language ("big wigs"), again)). But in the midst of your rancor and contempt, consider that after 9/11, a few crazy "big wigs" might actually have cared so much for their families that they were going to risk the wrath of the ABA and ACLU so that we may actually know whether or not there was another wave of attacks after WTC '93 and WTC '01. There have been several attacks thwarted, with the help of many willing to risk a lawyer's wrath.

And while you libs may think every "administration official" like Libby deserves a few years in prison for a jury being stupid enough to trust your recently decried Tim Russert above him, stupid enough to believe that it was the supporters and not the detractors of Operation Iraqi Freedom who leaked Valerie Plame's name to the press, other people actually want the bad guys (yes, I actually do think terrorists are bad guys) to go to jail more.

And what I said was lawyers and lobbyists have given $22 million to Democrats and we're almost a year from the election, so I think Dodd knows his tens of thousands from people who work for law firms is just the tip of the iceberg, that money's out there for him if he shows them how well he'll serve them in office. I'd rather he serve the people.

"You've GOT to be kidding. You are suggesting Dodd would imperil national security for measly 6k or 5k donations."

And which offends you more? It sounds to me like you're more offended by the implication that he'd come cheap than that he could be bought.

Morris, why even bother writing if you are just going to make shit up that's not related to reality?

1) I LOVE businesses. 2) This is hardly a post-9/11 thing, it was going on in February of 2001. 3) Since when did yelling 9/11 a lot mean that laws didn't still apply? 4) Silly me I think that both terrorists and those federal officials who subvert the law might be worthy of jail time (it's hardly an either or thing - the law is the law regardless of who breaks it ... well, no of course not, but it's supposed to be that way). 5) And so your argument really is that national security means nothing to Chris Dodd as long as he can get his campaign cash? Wow. Just ... wow.

First, I want to wish the Coup and all frequent flyers a Happy and Loving and Festive Holiday. And since that sounds awfully "lib" wishy-washy of me, I'll more precisely wish you, Morris, a Merry Christmas!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast:

"If we have the chance to hear rerrorist's phone calls, and we don't, I call that a BIG miss. How are we going to know which ones aren't important?"

And explain to me how this rationale wouldn't apply equally to garden-variety murderers -- or, to name someone more likely to use a throw-away phone, an assassin for organized crime? I'm guessing that the parent or spouse of someone killed in their living room by an intruder grieves precisely as much as someone who lost a child or spouse at Cantor Fitzgerald on 9/11. Are you going to be the one to explain to them that the crime that killed their loved one is subject to a different standard? Or are you going to slither out of the grass and admit that you've got the same contempt for the constitution that every other ultra-conservative who's never been harrassed by a rogue cop or fed has? Decide which it is; a constitution forces hard decisions, no question. But hey, at least if we abandon our "way of life" the terrorists might stop hating us for it, right? Right?

By the way, I don't care to do the research, and plainly you don't either, but my guess is that a goodly number, if not a huge supermajority, of the firms making significant political donations are corporate defense firms, who would seldom if ever represent plaintiffs against a telecom for fear of creating a conflict of interest that would preclude them from ever soliciting any more conventional business from said cash-cow telecom. I'm sure Bill Lerach's firm gave political donations through both nostrils; first, Congress tried to take away the variety of securities class actions that had paid for his private jet; second, they prosecuted him and he's now facing jail time.

"[C]onsider that after 9/11, a few crazy "big wigs" might actually have cared so much for their families that they were going to risk the wrath of the ABA and ACLU so that we may actually know whether or not there was another wave of attacks after WTC '93 and WTC '01. There have been several attacks thwarted, with the help of many willing to risk a lawyer's wrath."

Ah, I see you've already answered my question regarding the degree of your contempt for the constitution. So now we've got private cigizens deciding which civil rights apply and when? Brilliant. I'm amazed no one thought of that sooner! So what happens when Warren Buffett decides any number of shareholders are behaving in an anti-American fashion? Can he leverage their financial information to extort their compliance with the rule of law, by threatening to publicly embarrass them? Goodness knows what Steve Jobs might be capable of doing to mess with the right if, in his sage constitutional judgment, he deemed such to be a good idea.

And as for contempt, no one's shown more contempt in these discussions than you -- ditto wrath. Lawyers are usually more professional than wrath, even if their clients aren't. And given the way your buddies Cheney (Go fuck yourself), Rove (McCain has an illegitimate multi-racial child), and Bush (terrorism; let's go hunt us some A-rabs) behave, I think the right has cornered the market on wrath for the time being.

Moon,
If we wiretap an organized crime boss in New Jersey's phone with a warrant, our agents can listen in on whoever they want to call or to get a call from in New Jersey. If we wiretap a terrorist's phone in Saudi Arabia, our agents can't listen to a call going to and coming from the same person in New Jersey, or anyone else in America, without getting a warrant to listen to that American collaborator.

So we effectively miss the first call without a doubt. And with the advent of throwaway cell phones, even if the phone company gives our government the target phone's number and registration, it may have been stolen from that person (or sold by), so we'll never be able to get those calls. Missing even the first is too big a miss. So, yes, let's treat the mafia assassin and the foreign terrorist equally in terms of what law enforcement can listen to with a warrant for one of the parties to that conversation.