Buildup To A Discharge: How Some Representatives Are Looking To Force A Vote On FISA
from the dont-follow-the-leader dept
Sources on the Hill report that, in the wake of last week's dust-up over surveillance reform in the House of Representatives, House Republicans are preparing to circulate a discharge petition, a mechanism that can be used to circumvent House leadership and move a bill directly to the floor to force a vote.The Senate has already passed White House-supported legislation amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to expand the government's power to eavesdrop on conversations with overseas parties without a warrant -- legislation that also includes a controversial provision providing retroactive immunity against civil suits to telecoms that gave the National Security Agency access to customer data without a court order. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has refused to schedule a vote on the House version of the Senate's bill.
Since, under House rules, that legislation is not subject to a discharge petition as currently engrossed, Reps. Vito Fossella (R-NY), Peter King (R-NY), and Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) have introduced their own version. They are currently gathering informal commitments from legislators while waiting out the 30-day time limit before a petition can be formally circulated.
Since discharge petitions are seen as a direct affront to leadership's control of the agenda, legislators are generally extremely reticent about signing them: The last time one was used successfully was in 2002, when it forced a vote on Shays-Meehan, the House version of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law. Some members even have blanket policies against signing such petitions. And since they require a simple majority to become effective, Republicans would need to win over many of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats who have urged Pelosi to move forward with the Senate's version of the FISA bill. And even those willing to break with Pelosi on this issue may have qualms about slapping her in the face quite so overtly.
Instead of being directly used to force a vote, then, a source in the office of a Republican representative projects that the petition will be used to bring pressure directly to bear on Democratic members, and indirectly on the Democratic leadership. The latest assault in that pressure campaign came today in the form of a 24-style scare ad put out by the House Republican Conference, warning of impending terror attacks unless Democrats act quickly to reauthorize warrantless wiretaps.
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Filed Under: congress, discharge petition, fisa
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Fortunately, Americans are becoming increasingly impatient with this strategy. They've gone to the well one too many times on the "give me this power or you're all gonna die" routine.
Really, what's so hard about following the Constitution when it comes to wiretapping? Only 30 years ago, the Soviet Union was the "worst threat in the history of the universe". Now that's fallen through so we have to have a new even worse "threat to all human existence". Please.
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There have been several terror attacks prevented since 9-11 and they have ALL been prevented by standard, routine police work.
What I want to know is why is since the court used to issue warrents pretty much just rubber stamps (an issue itself) all requests why is it so critical that the FISA allow warrentless wiretaps be allowed?
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Re:
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Why the political edge?
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This whole wiretapping mess perfectly illustrates his way of thinking; "What? Using wiretaps without warrants is illegal? Well hell, let's make them legal then!" Don't change your ways to comply with the law, change the laws to comply with your way of thinking!
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Once again, I must take issue with the original article. The bill is not to "expand" FISA as much as it is to "extend" it. Insuring immunity to the telecoms on this one narrow issue - providing info to the gov't for intel purposes - is hardly an expansion. It's just a common-sense inducement to obtain the telecom's cooperation.
Sorry if my take on this isn't very liberal, but I personally don't have any reason to fear the gov't but have every reason to fear the entities that FISA is meant to target.
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Communications have changed, now, you have phones, you have email, you have chat rooms, you have instant messenger. You have VoIP, it goes on and on. Should we ignore communications now to protect ourselves? Should we look at person a that talked to person b that talked to person c that talks regularly to a terrorist?
You want to know one of the big issues in security is right now? Its conference calling. No one calls each other, they just go to a conference call. How the hell do you work that one out.
Sometimes, if you can't find the needle, you have to take the haystack.
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Re: anonymous coward,2.22.08
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