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December 18, 2007
Greenwald: FISA Delay Was a Grassroots Success
Salon's Glenn Greenwald provides a good summary of what happened yesterday as the Senate considered a FISA overhaul that would have granted telecommunications companies immunity for participating in warrantless wiretapping.
Here's his recap of events on October 18:
"On October 18, it was announced that Dick Cheney and Jay Rockefeller had reached an agreement on a new FISA bill that would dramatically expand the President's warrantless surveillance powers beyond what the original FISA law provided. It also would provide full-scale retroactive immunity for all telecoms which participated in the President's illegal spying efforts, a gift that would effectively end all efforts to investigate the administration's illegal spying programs and hold the lawbreakers accountable."
[...]
"Earlier that morning, Big Tent Democrat had noted that Chris Dodd had issued a strongly worded statement against Jay Rockefeller's bill, and he urged Dodd to announce he would lead a filibuster against the bill. Based on all of that, it was quickly recognized, both in comments and in that email group, that the obvious choice to target for a "hold" was Dodd, who had made constitutional and oversight issues the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.
"Within literally a matter of minutes, numerous blogs began urging their readers to contact the Dodd campaign to ask Dodd to place a "hold" on any bill containing immunity. MoveOn sent out an email to its membership list urging the same. Blog readers and others then deluged the Dodd campaign by the thousands, tying up their telephones and overflowing their email boxes.
"It was exclusively in response to that blog-based outpouring of citizen passion that Dodd -- within a matter of a few hours -- emphatically vowed that he would do something he has almost never done during his 24-year Senate career: place a "hold" on this bill and, if necessary, lead a filibuster against it on the floor of the Senate. Dodd's responsiveness, and the all-too-rare leadership he displayed, prompted an outpouring of support for his campaign from citizens hungry for any sort of Democratic leadership, as he raised $200,000 in small donations over the next 24 hours alone, exceeding the total he had raised for the preceding many months."
The other key takeaway is that while anti-telco-immunity advocates may be chalking this up as a win, it's a temporary one: Everything's back up for consideration in January. It'll be interesting to see if the grassroots opposition can continue to make an impression on Democrats who are aware of the importance of the issue to some of their base but resentful that they can't just let the telcos off the hook and get on with riding out the Bush presidency.
Posted by mhall at 5:35 PM | Add Comment
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