FISA Renewal
By JCDFA (edited from a release by 1 Pres Candidate to be nameless).

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is before the Senate for renewal. FISA is the bill that specifies the process for obtaining a warrant to access confidential communications records. It has been routinely ignored by the Bush Administration, and as it turns out, they have been doing warrantless surveillance since BEFORE 9/11.

Bush has put a clause in the FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity to the phone companies that turned over confidential records to the government without a warrant. They want this retroactive immunity because several law suits have been filed against AT&T, Verizon and others for civil rights violations. If these cases come to court, it will be on record in a court of law that the Bush administration violated the law and directed the phone companies to violate the law, as well.

The danger of granting retroactive immunity is extraordinary. First, we would be taking away the Judiciary’s normal authority in such matters. Second, we don’t know what we are granting immunity for – we don’t know the extent to which our rights have been violated. Third, companies that knowingly violated the law, even at the government’s behest, must be held accountable.

Democrats have put a hold on the FISA bill, but that wonÂ’t stop the Senate from bring the bill to the floor for a vote. The FISA statute is now before the Judiciary Committee, and it is possible the Judiciary Committee can vote to strip the retroactive immunity provision from the bill. If they pass the FISA bill as is, Democrats will filibuster the bill. They believe retroactive immunity is an egregious violation of our Constitutional rights and he will do everything in his power to prevent it from becoming law. If the retroactive immunity provision is stripped from the bill, it could be reintroduced as an amendment, but it would be infinitely easier to defeat the amendment than to successfully filibuster the entire bill.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

We are asking anyone and everyone to contact members of the Judiciary Committee and demand that they remove retroactive immunity from the FISA bill.

If you are interested in the testimony of Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee who testified before the Judiciary Committee about the wholesale dumping of Internet communications to the NSA, you can check it out.

Democrats believe it is a false choice between our civil liberties and our security. We must hold the line and protect the RULE OF LAW – not the rule of men, as the Bush administration would have it. I hope you will join us in this battle.