I received a response from Dianne Feinstein and want to share it with you, I think some of her choice of language is telling and shows what is ahead for those of us who want to see this illegal wire tapping brought in to the light.
Dear Mr. XXXXX:
Thank you for writing regarding the Bush Administration's request for legislation that would provide liability relief for telecommunications companies that are alleged to have provided assistance to the National Security Agency after September 11, 2001. I appreciate your thoughts on this topic, and welcome the opportunity to respond.
The Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill on October 18th amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) by a vote of 13-2. That bill, among many provisions, would provide immunity for such companies if they were specifically requested or directed to provide assistance to the government.
The Intelligence Committee's report on the bill includes declassified text stating that the Executive branch provided letters to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. These letters all directed or requested assistance and noted that the assistance was authorized by the President and was legal. The Committee's report can be found at http://intelligence.senate.gov/...
I voted for the FISA legislation that passed out of the Intelligence Committee by a bipartisan vote of 13-2. The Senate Judiciary Committee did not take action on the portions of the bill dealing with immunity. The bill is now scheduled to go to the Senate floor. I am keeping an open mind to whether some other legislative approach besides immunity would be best.
Rest assured that I will make every effort to ensure that new FISA legislation will protect the privacy rights of all Americans without restricting the intelligence community's ability to protect us from attack.
Again, thank you for writing. I hope that you will continue to write on matters of importance to you. Should you have any further comments or questions, please feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
I found this to be a tell of the potential framing of this issue for Democrats as we take up this issue in again.
liability relief for telecommunications companies that are alleged to have provided assistance to the National Security Agency after September 11, 2001
First off, there is evidence that this was going on before 9/11 (PDF), a major point when it comes to this kind of retroactive immunity, the major argument is that it was need to protect us from another terrorist attack.
And the second major point for me here is that Dianne words very carefully that the SJC "did not take action on the portions dealing with community" and if I didn't know which committee she works on, then I might be misled into thinking that she in fact concurred with my request to not support immunity for these telecommunications companies who have been working within the law (at least as far as anyone in the public sphere knows) and chose to break the law anyway.
We must not count on any one of these Senator's to stand with us, especially the DINO Feinstein.