| Early Friday afternoon, I called Senator Landrieu's office and spoke to a very nice young woman who answered the phone. I asked her where Senator Landrieu stood on the new FISA bill, upon which the House Democratic Leadership capitulated to the telecommunications industry, and the Bush Administration. That nice young lady told me that the staff was going through the provisions of the legislation, and would be advising the Senator. So I am posting this open letter, which I know will be read by her staff, and hopefully passed on to the Senator herself.
Dear Senator Landrieu:
I write to you today to ask that you vote NO on the latest FISA bill that will be in the Senate at some point this week. Not only am I asking you vote NO, I am asking you to filibuster this shredding of our 4th Amendment.
I understand that the current bill brings back the pre-Bush FISA regulations in quite a few ways, and in many ways is superior to the bill voted down by the House earlier this year. However, if there is a line in the sand to be drawn on this issue ... it is retroactive immunity.
I get that the Bush Administration asked the telecommunication giants to help them shred the 4th Amendment in the name of national security and protecting us from the terrorists. While I don't necessarily agree with that faulty reasoning, as I am of the Ben Franklin school - "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" - and as such, believe shredding the 4th Amendment to be a step on the path to fascism.
My grandparents' generation, and your parents' generation, Senator, saved us from worldwide fascism ... and it's long past time that you, along with your fellow Senators heeded their sacrifices in a way more meaningful than passing resolutions honoring them, or building monuments to them. Honor them by standing up against the idea of giving corporations that broke one of our cherished values - freedom from governmental spying without probable cause - retroactive immunity from lawsuits.
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, among others, know they broke the law. And they are scared of losing multi-million dollar judgments in court for their complicity in helping the Bush Administration violate their oaths of office to defend our Constitution. That is why they are seeking retroactive immunity, Senator. They broke the law, and they don't want to be held accountable for it. How un-American of them. How unpatriotic of them.
Senator, you were recently quoted in a new book, Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove as describing what the Bush Adminstration's response to Katrina did to you:
"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life."
Senator, if the criminal response to Katrina on the part of the Bush Administration truly changed your life ... please, send the President yet another a lesson (that you don't mess with the American people or our Constitution) by filibustering this bill until retroactive immunity is taken out of it. If you can't do that, at the very least, support a filibuster by any other Senator, AND, most importantly, vote against any version of this bill with retroactive immunity in it. |
