Posted on 03/27/2008 6:30:05 AM PDT by americaprd
There are enough issues surrounding proposed legislation on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to choke a symbolic donkey, and that is just what Craig Williams, the Republican candidate for the 7th Congressional District seat of the U.S. House, is looking to do.
Williams, who hopes to unseat Democratic incumbent state Rep. Joseph Sestak in the November general election, called the congressman and other House Democrats “irresponsible and ineffective” for passing a bill this month aimed at permanently updating the 30-year-old FISA, but holding back on retroactively protecting telecommunications companies.
The Senate passed a similar bill in February that provides retroactive protection for those companies that had passed information to the government without a FISA court warrant following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Without that same provision in the House bill, it is almost sure to die either in the Senate or by presidential veto, drawing Williams’ ire.
The worry over protection for telecoms is that they won’t be so eager to help in the future if they get sued this time for doing what they thought was legal in a time of war. Under the 1978 FISA law, only a FISA court warrant grants the government the privilege to view communications intercepts of Americans, but President George W. Bush has argued a congressional declaration giving him wartime powers supercedes that law.
There are already several class-action suits against these companies pending before a California court.
“By law, they’re required not to give up information unless they have some warrant under FISA,” said Sestak, 56, of Edgmont. “We want to understand, before we give amnesty, what it was that was given away … How can you give blanket amnesty to anyone until you know what they did?”
That is why the House bill proposes closed hearings to determine exactly what authority the telecoms might have believed they were operating under, said Sestak, and then go from there.
“If it is truly about the right answer, then let the government intervene as an interested party,” said Williams, 43, of Concord. “Allow the (American Civil Liberties Union) and others to sue the government (over) the theoretical debate, if that’s what they’re truly after.”
Sestak, a retired three-star vice admiral and the first director of “Deep Blue,” the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit that established strategic and operations policies for the War on Terror, pointed to several provisions in the House bill he said would strengthen intelligence-gathering capabilities.
These include: Extending emergency wiretapping situations without the need for a FISA court warrant from three days to seven; allowing emergency surveillance to continue an additional 30 days while the FISA court makes its determination; including those who proliferate weapons of mass destruction into the scope of coverage; and allowing for “basket” tapping, meaning a new application to the court would not be required for every name added to a wire.
“Nobody takes issue with the fact a warrant is required to tap an American phone,” said Williams. “What we’re talking about now is the requirement to get a warrant for phone calls for signals intelligence entirely overseas, so there is no American involved.
“If somebody says that a federal court can stand up on a wire tap for 30 days, they’re missing the conversation entirely. They’re putting procedures in place that are going to slow the whole procedure down. The question really is, do we need for intelligence (officers) on the battlefield to go to a federal court to get a warrant to recover that signal intelligence?”
“There’s no way that I would ever vote for any bill that does not ensure the best information is available for those deployed or those at home,” said Sestak. “It’s always had (in)there that if someone is talking in Saudi Arabia and someone is talking in Germany, for instance, but it goes through a U.S. router, you don’t even have to ask permission (to monitor the conversation).”
If the bill is rejected by the Senate and comes back to the House, said Sestak, the telecom provision would likely be removed and debated as a separate piece of legislation, allowing the other areas of the bill to go back to the Senate where it would have a better chance of passage.
the more i learn about the williams, the more i like him. i hope delco voters do the research and realize we have someone far superior to sestak running.
I was just about to post that exact same pic.
Hah! Isn’t Will Ferrel doing a remake of Land of the Lost? I wonder who else could be cast for the other parts...
Hillary can be cast as Grumpy, the T-rex.
How about James Carville as Cha-ka...
http://www.pheistyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/chaka.jpg
Yes or even Fauxbama!
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