New York Democratic Congressman Jose Serrano said he’s not going.

“If I forget and mention some of that debate in this debate [tomorrow], what kind of trouble am I in?,” Serrano asked. “This makes American people think we don’t want to discuss in public some things and may in fact strike fear into members to vote for a bill they should not vote for.”

Under questioning prior to the debate, Republican whip Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) said he doesn’t have new secret information, just secret information that only members of the intelligence committees have seen.

“I haven’t suggested it is at the Top Secret level or at the program level,” Blunt said. “This is information it would be helpful for all members to talk about. I’m not going to talk about the Top Secret part of the program, but I have some information that would help the debate that rises to the secret level.”

While members can’t later speak about any classified or unclassified information discussed in the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) clarified that members were free to say they went to the secret session.

Update: And here’s Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a member of the intelligence committee, who’s similarly skeptical:

“I believe in the use of secret sessions in the House when they are intended to truly educate members on the issues and provide them with valuable classified information. Secret sessions should not be used as a cynical, delaying tactic to block the House from voting on critical legislation that would strengthen our intelligence collection efforts and protect the American people from warrantless surveillance. I will be interested to see if Mr. Boehner truly has new classified information on this program to share with members of the House, and I will seek the opportunity to inform my colleagues of what I have learned about this program and the President’s actions in this matter.”

But this time, it will be every democrat
inclined to vote against retroactive immunity
in congress — house or senate.

D I N G!

Report on F.B.I. Use of Personal Data

And after all, who knew? You thought AQ was a threat but it is after all, armies of Killer Hookers and Escort Services that threaten your freedom. The hookers hate your freedom. The hooker fundamentalists want to destroy civilization as you know it.

The civil and criminal remedy sections are totally illusory. But you hit on another point that’s bugged me, too. That of bootstrapping criminal probable cause from either thin air, or from some tenuous exclamation of “I was looking for foreign intelligence.”

As in, “We just happened to be checking to see if terrorists were using escort services in the East Coast metropolitan areas, and gee, were we surprise when we saw Elliot Spitzer’s name.”

Bob in HI

The civil and criminal remedy sections are totally illusory. But you hit on another point that’s bugged me, too. That of bootstrapping criminal probable cause from either thin air, or from some tenuous exclamation of “I was looking for foreign intelligence.”

Thanks for the link. I don’t think the procedural effects are quite as “profound” as they are presented, but he’s right that the minority can’t object to a “motion to proceed.” That would have been true if S.2248 had been the vehicle, too.

There really isn’t any procedural difference, at least not that I can see. The big deal, and one of the posts picked up on this, is that delay didn’t result in much traction on the “gotta have immunity” argument. The next “big deal” will be that each chamber will have passed a bill, but with differences. They can pass amendments back and forth, and eventually reach a point known as “disagreement” at which point a conference is in order.

Some bill die somewhere along this process.

Anyway, the neat thing will be that the ball will pass from the House to the Senate. The Senate could well sit on it, with the net result being an impasse.

How illusory are the FISA civil and criminal claims provisions, even when there were truly limits on fishing through US citizen info without criminal probable cause? The whole switchover, allegedly to address the issues caused by “the wall,” to allowing almost any kind of surveillance on any American with the merest breath of a requirement that there be probable cause to think they may be in contact with an agent of a foreign power (oh, wait, we’re going to make that just any foreign person now, right?) so that the door is opened to all kinds of searches and seizures In HOPES of Finding evidence of criminal matters (for which there is no criminal probable cause to justify a warrant) —- it just floors me and is just skimmed over by whispering “wall” here and there.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

signing off