Strange Bedfellows Fight FISA Deal

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June 18, 2008

Strange Bedfellows Fight FISA Deal

A “compromise” on warrantless wiretapping is about to emerge from Congress. Indications are it will let telecommunications companies that participated in illegal surveillance avoid any legal responsibility for what they did by granting amnesty for their activities. A group calling itself “Strange Bedfellows” is organizing a fundraising campaign designed to fight the compromise:

“The ACLU is joining with activists from the Ron Paul campaign, represented by Break the Matrix, Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman, and civil liberties writer Glenn Greenwald of Salon, and leading liberal bloggers including, Jane Hamsher of firedoglake, Matt Stoller of Open Left, John Amato of Crooks and Liars, Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny, Digby, Josh Nelson of The Seminal and activist Josh Koster to tell Congress that we will not let them ignore the Constitution or give immunity to telecoms which deliberately broke our laws for years.

“This group of Strange Bedfellows is mobilizing a broad-based left-right coalition of office holders and candidates, public interest groups and individuals who are devoted to preserving basic constitutional liberties to join in the fight. The goal is to work together to impede the corrupt FISA/telecom amnesty deal.”

(Link)

I got that link from Glenn Greenwald, who wrote up a detailed summary of the campaign’s goals, which include electoral punishment of pro-amnesty Democrats.

Nutshell:

“So Phase I, to begin immediately, will focus on ad campaigns against two Democratic pro-amnesty incumbents with no primary challenger (Hoyer and Carney), and one pro-amnesty Democratic incumbent with a credible primary challenge very shortly. Phase II will involve a massive money bomb, to be planned by the same people who were behind the money bombs that raised millions and millions of dollars for the Ron Paul presidential campaign. The dates and other details for that will be announced shortly.

“The plan there is to raise an extraordinary amount of money — dwarfing the $90,000 raised in the last 24 hours — by going to all of the various constituents of each member of this coalition in order to fuel a real campaign in defense of civil liberties, constitutional protections and the rule of law. The money raised will be used to oppose and punish those vulnerable members of Congress who continue to support the evisceration of our constitutional framework and core civil liberties, while supporting candidates and office-holders who meaningfully oppose that assault.

“The Beltway establishment needs to be trained to understand that there is a real constituency for defending our constitutional framework. Thus far, that constituency has been dormant and fragmented, and thus ignored. That, more than anything, is what needs to change, and this coalition and the initial two-phase strategy is intended to be merely a start towards changing that, and will continue regardless of the outcome of this FISA/amnesty vote.”

The entire entry is worth a read. Greenwald notes that Barack Obama has been mailing this response to people inquiring about his stance on telco immunity:

“Giving retroactive immunity to telecom companies is simply wrong. Thankfully, the most recent effort to pass this legislation at the end of the legislative year failed. I unequivocally oppose this grant of immunity and support the filibuster of it. I have cosponsored Senator Dodd’s proposal that would remove it from the current FISA bill and continue to follow this debate closely. In order to prevail, the proponents of retroactive immunity still have to convince 60 or more senators to vote to end a filibuster of this bill. I will not be one of them.”

The New York Times has called on Obama to consider expending some effort on the issue.