A Filibuster Looms

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chair of the Judiciary Committee, announced Monday he will join with Senators Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold and others in opposing the version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that grants retroactive immunity to the telecom giants favored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, chair of the Intelligence Committee.

One of the biggest days in United States constitutional history will take place Tuesday, February 12, when the Senate is voting on amendments to the FISA bill, the law governing the use of wiretaps and other means to conduct surveillance of alleged foreign and domestic terrorism suspects. If you have never taken the time to watch one of the debates on C-SPAN, Tuesday will be a good day to turn to C-SPAN II, which broadcasts the Senate live.

“I will do everything in my power – including joining my colleague Chris Dodd in a filibuster against this legislation – to fix it,” Leahy said.

Votes on the outstanding amendments to the bill will begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, then the filibuster fight begins in earnest when Leahy and Dodd will vote against cloture on the bill to continue debate. If they are successful in preventing 60 votes for cloture, the debate can continue for as long as 30 hours. If they fail to prevent cloture, Dodd has four hours reserved for him and his colleagues like Leahy to convince enough fellow Democrats to vote against final passage.

Citizens interested in preserving the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and the rule against illegal searches and seizures should contact your Senators on the toll free line at 1-800-965-4701 to urge them to vote against providing retroactive immunity to the telecoms and to vote YES on S 3907, the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip immunity from the bill.

It is one of the most critical moments in U.S. history and will be interesting to see whether democracy will survive, whether enough Senators can be found to stop the granting of retroactive immunity to the telecom giants and stand up to Bush and his illegal domestic operation of sweeping up the e-mail, Web and phone communications of millions of innocent American citizens, especially advocates for peace and the environment.

Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy

Remarks of Senator Russ Feingold

Statement of Senator Chris Dodd

Tags: Domestic Surveillance, Liberty vs. Security

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.