The Truth About FISA & Telecom Immunity

With the state of today’s media, I think it’s important to circulate the few bits of cold, hard truth that are available. One such example of a straightforward presentation of the facts was the explanation of the FISA controversy given by Air America radio show host Randi Rhodes on Valentine’s Day. (I have a subscription to Air America Premium, which allows me to listen to their broadcasts commercial free on my IPod, which is something I highly recommend for anyone who is looking for a source of news that doesn’t involve staring at a computer screen.) The following is a portion of Randi Rhodes’ February 14th show which will explain the entire FISA/telecom immunity situation in a way that will make perfect sense to anyone that is currently confused. To put the following in context, this show was broadcast the day before the Protect America Act revision to FISA expired.

On the morning in question, Randi started her show by playing a clip of our President greeting the country (on Valentines Day) like this:

PRESIDENT BUSH: “Good morning. At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country.”

Here is Randi’s reaction to that lovely Valentines Day "they're coming to get you!" greeting from our President:

This is all about this stupid FISA bill. It’s going to expire. Do you know that? It’s going to expire on Friday. That’s a good thing. That’s a good thing. You know, I get cranky in the morning too when I don’t get retroactive immunity for stuff I’ve done. But that’s no reason to threaten a whole country...Over the past, oh, I’ll say 7 years – now I know you all think this happened post-9/11 but it didn’t. It didn’t. The National Security Agency was wiretapping Americans way before we were attacked on 9/11 and doing it without getting warrants. See, therein lies the dilemma. The President had been lying about it for a very long time.



(Voice of President Bush) “Anytime you hear the United States government talk about ‘wiretap’, it requires – a wiretap requires- a court order… Constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland because we value the Constitution.”

Well, that was then and this is now. Now, all of a sudden, the President is trying to cover up the crime of wiretapping people without getting warrants, so he wants retroactive immunity to be given to a group of people known as “the telecoms” who are also one of the top five biggest lobbyists in Washington, hence the state of amnesia, and your phone bill…

You know, the Senate gave him what he wanted. The House, like I told you yesterday, has not given him what he wanted.

I did find out why the Democrats voted not to give a 21 day extension to the debate and the reason is –not because they are as bad as the Republicans, no – the reason is because they don’t want to talk about it anymore. They don’t want to give retroactive immunity, case closed. Their legislation does not contain it, never will, don’t need to talk about it for 21 more days...

So, the extension failed yesterday in the House. The House wants to go ahead with its version which does not provide retroactive immunity to the telecoms.

And the only reason to give retroactive immunity is because a crime has been committed, otherwise why would you need immunity? The very words themselves imply a crime has been committed and we need to immunize you telecoms against the crime you did.

Now if you don’t believe that this started before 9/11, I urge you to look up a document titled “Transition 2001”. It was the document that was issued to the Bush administration incoming when the previous administration was on its way out the door. The Bush administration decided that the NSA could participate in all kinds of warrant-less wiretapping and that would be fine with them. Except we thought that the wiretapping that the NSA would conduct, if it ever picked up an American citizen and that citizen had done nothing, that those pieces of information would be destroyed. But that’s not what’s happened here.

I'm going to pause here because Randi didn't tell us (in this particular rant) exactly what is happening, and I think it's an important thing to know. I bring this up a lot, I know, but I don't think the vast majority of people in this country know about the splitter cabinets at AT&T. Here's the post I wrote giving the full story, but basically, the splitter cabinets are dumb devices that have been installed in at least 5 locations (San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego) that copy everything that is transmitted over AT&T's fiber optic lines. Emails, text messages, internet searches, phone calls - everything. The splitter cabinets also copy the information of non-AT&T customers that pass through the AT&T network - and any hubs that the AT&T network connects to. These are just the splitter cabinets that we know of at AT&T.

The Bush administration and his protectors have been copying and keeping everything that goes over that telecom's wires. God only knows how many more have been installed by AT&T and the other telecoms that are now currently in need of immunity. That is what is happening here. That is what they don't want (more of) us to know.

So, let’s just say that you don’t need immunity unless you committed a crime. The reason why the President is so desperate for this telecom immunity, now, is because there are at least 40 lawsuits in federal court being brought by people who feel that the have been erroneously, illegally, wiretapped. And when you bring a lawsuit, there’s this period of time before you actually go to court – it takes a long time to meander through the court system – and there’s this thing that happens. Lawyers like to call it “discovery”. Like the space shuttle. And it is an apt name for the space shuttle because it is exploring the unknown... So, discovery of these lawsuits that are pending will go away if the telecom companies are immunized, and they don’t have to go to court...

By the way, we know about the AT&T splitter cabinets because of a technician named Mark Klein who testified in a lawsuit titled Hepting v. AT&T, a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation "accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications."

And so this is what this is all about. Stopping lawsuits. That’s all its about. It has absolutely no effect on intelligence gathering…And the President’s position is that we’re all gonna die unless the telecoms get the immunity. Sort of telling you a lie, well it is a lie, that if the telecoms don’t get immunity he can’t get them warrants to wiretap people who might want to hurt us. Is he lazy or does he think we’re stupid?

Or is he a just a criminal trying to cover his ass?

So the next time you see some Congressman (or President) stand up and demand immunity for the poor, defenseless, gigantic, uber-wealthy, criminal telecom companies, the first and only question that should pop into your mind is, "What crime is this person trying to cover up and how exactly is this person involved?"

They took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Nothing. Else. Matters. More.

You should then remember that person's name because he or she will have just revealed to you that he or she is a member of The Club and has "embraced the dark side". That person is not on your team. Don't trust anything else that person says. Then do what you can, be it through political donations or good, old-fashioned shit-talking to boot 'em off the island known as Washington DC.

Every member of the House is up for re-election this year and 23 members of the Senate. We pretty much know that our Presidential nominees are going to be Barack Obama and John McCain (thanks to Hillary's meltdown). If you insist upon focusing on the election (as opposed to the criminals that are still in office and doing daily harm) it's time to focus on the Congressional races now.