Dear Majority Leader Reid:

We understand that the Senate will shortly be considering amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As you know, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Judiciary Committee have reported very different versions of the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, and it is up to you, as Majority Leader, to decide how the Senate considers this legislation.

We urge you to make the version of S. 2248 reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee the base bill to be considered by the full Senate. While the structure of Title I of both bills is the same, and both make improvements over the Protect America Act, the reasonable changes to Title I made in the Judiciary Committee ensure that the FISA Court will be able to conduct much-needed oversight of the implementation of these broad new surveillance authorities, and help to better protect the rights of innocent Americans. While we appreciate the hard work that the Intelligence Committee has done on this legislation, the process by which the Judiciary Committee considered, drafted, amended and reported out its bill was an open one, allowing outside experts and the public at large the opportunity to review and comment. With regard to legislation so directly connected to the constitutional rights of Americans, the results of this open process should be accorded great weight, especially in light of the Judiciary Committee’s unique role and expertise in protecting those rights.

We also believe that the Judiciary Committee bill is preferable because it does not provide immunity for telecom companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. As this is such a controversial issue, we feel it would be appropriate to require the proponents of immunity to make their case on the floor.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold (D-WI)

Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT)

Barack Obama (D-IL)

Bernard Sanders (I-VT)

Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE)

Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Tom Harkin (D-IA)

Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)

Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)

Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)

Jim Webb (D-VA)

Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)

Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

It occured to me also, and there are probably several good law reviews out or in progress that while the government’s terrorism case record is terrible, and they have lost several rounds of Gitmo decisions in the appellate courts that as far as Surveillance opnions go, so far the Courts have nearly always sided with the goverment ala Bates’ opinion at the FISC court.

Telco immunity as we all know would foreclose many pending cases that want to shed light on warantless wiretapping.

The Ninth Circuit case against the State Secrets defense is still alive, as is one in the D.C. Circuit. U.S. 9th Circuit Deals Setback to NSA Surveillance Victim

BTW a D.C. Circuit panel issued an order yesterday afternoon for preservation of tapes at Gitmo after J. Wells Dixon and other attorneys for Gitmo detainee, Majid Kahn, filed a motion requesting the order. I see many more motions coming as attorneys realize that it’s the government’s MO to tape the torture and then destroy the tapes or hide them and lie and say they don’t exist. The level of DOJ cooperation in this obstruction is not surprising at all to me. I couldn’t find the order on the D.C. Circuit website, and didn’t feel like logging into Pacer. Why is it that the Circuit Courts of Appeals and many district courts have such crappy haphazard websites when people are paid to make them usable? Many of them are egregiously horrible at even displaying recent opinions and particularly orders issued.

U.S. court orders Guantanamo torture evidence preserved

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I’m fighting a flu with a dizzying fever and a wicked cough.

Google Street View is pretty good.

The list extends too from the mapping pic apps to policies that are specifically more sinister and singular in purpose–

1) MSFT was turning over MSN searches to the gov and didn’t come clean about it even to their employees for a good while. It’s not clear what they are doing now although they deny saving the searches. Same for Google. There were two secret meetings in D.C. on back to back days DOJ held with the search engine companies including Yahoo Search, MSN, Google and I don’t know how many others back in June 2006. The excuse for DOJ is always that they are trying to catch child predators, but it has a much broader spying purpose than that.

2)The ISPs like Comcast are now archiving all internet traffic and have a clause that says they are doing it buried deep within the fine print of agreements that no one reads. This has been elucidated on EFF, Wired, and other sites but I can’t grab the link on the fly at the moment.

Spying — it’s not just for the government any more.

Happy No More Secrets Day…

General Haden, Looks like Hitler
Dressed in Uniform Style
In the air, there’s a feeling
You’re always watched
Email Traffic
Cell Phone Texts
Your bank accounts too
Cameras on every corner you’ll see

Silver Bells, Silver Bells
It’s Surveillance Time
In the Country.
Jelly Fish Spine Dems
Soon it will be All Spy Day

Secret Meetings You Can’t Hear
Bates cutting off your info
As the bureaucracy laughs
Over your emails
Government tapes
All get destroyed
But not yours
Ring a ling
They hear you sing
Soon It Will be Wiretap Day

DOJ cross matrixes your bank accounts
And the no fly list
Hear the numbers crunch
The taped conversations bunch
ATT, Verizon, Sprint
Search Engines too
It’s Wiretap Time
In the Country.

We understand the Committee’s desire to obtain certain documents relating to the President’s Terrorist Surveillance Program and we will continue to work with you to address your needs. However, some of the documents requested by the Committee such as the President’s authorizations of the Program are not within my discretion to provide. This is also the case with the Executive Branch legal opinions and any potentially responsive communications with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These documents currently are the subject of an ongoing discussion within the Executive Branch.

Silly–you just ask Judy.

To borrow from Dana Perino’s husband, “Oh, John.”