While the Senate was ready to vote on the FISA Amendments Act today, Senators Russell Feingold and Christopher Dodd fought to keep them from casting a final vote and jamming the bill through Congress.
In a statement released by Feingold, he says:
"I am pleased we were able to delay the vote on FISA until after the July 4th holiday instead of having it jammed through. I hope that over the July 4th Holiday, Senators will take a closer look at the deeply flawed legislation and understand how it threatens the civil liberties of the American People. It is possibly to protect this country against the terrorists while also protecting the rights and freedoms that define our nation."
For those who haven't read up on the new FISA bill, it would basically give the government the right to peek into the private overseas phone conversations, emails, and even text messages of all Americans. Part of the bill would give retroactive immunity to telephone companies that gave the government private information of Americans.
Feingold says the FISA bill would also allow the government to take all international communications and put it in a giant database. The most outrageous part of the bill states that there does not have to be any court review or evidence that anyone is doing anything wrong before the government intrudes on the person's privacy. The government will simply have complete access to the personal overseas communications of every single American.
Feingold continues to say, "It's a vast power that has no limits. There's no regulation of it."
Obviously, the new FISA bill was created to help the government "track down terrorists"....just like the Iraq War was orchestrated to find weapons of mass destruction. It all makes perfect sense.
It's angering that the government has instilled so much fear in the minds of Americans, that many are ready to hand over precious civil liberties in the name of "protection." In fact, it's sickening. All the Republicans who are avid gun owners and want to protect their constitutional right to bear arms have NO RIGHT to say an American's right to privacy is not as important. This proposed FISA bill simply violates the right to privacy. Fear tactics should not trick Americans into giving up their freedoms. The Senate needs to wake up.
The more the Bush Administration remains in power, the more the United States mirrors the image George Orwell illustrated in his book 1984. Big brother really is watching, and members of our own Senate are allowing it to happen.
Feingold admits that many of the Senators have not completely read the bill and do not know the logistics of it. By holding off on the bill until after July 4th, hopefully the Senate will have the opportunity to think things over and not just hand the Bush Administration exactly what they want.
If you want to watch TYT's interview with Senator Feingold, please check out the video below:
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FISA Bill On Hold!
Posted Jun 26th 2008 8:23PM by Ana Kasparian
Filed under: Iraq, Politics, George Bush, Media, Young Turks
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Reader Comments ( Page 6 of 23)
76. and don't forget deutches bank quickly bought alex brown, where all the short selling was taking place.
Dennis at 1:20PM on Jun 27th 2008
77. Botts, your brain belongs in a pickle jar beside Dennis's...
xxxx
Good news, everyone!
Clif Kuplen at 1:21PM on Jun 27th 2008
78. Nice post Ana Kasparian!
You guys have to realize that when you post a comment on AOL News Bloggers, an email is automatically sent to the author of the article.
So if Ana wants to reply to your comment/email, it is perfectly normal and violates no rights. Of course, I would prefer to see her responses in the comment section as I'm sure I would enjoy them and it would make for a more level playing field.
It is ironic though that proponents of the FISA bill are whining about their rights being violated.
Keep it real, Turks!
FINN
FINN at 1:44PM on Jun 27th 2008
79. Plank 10 of the Communist Manifesto is to devise an indoctrination of Marxism under the guise of Public Education. Barack Obama is a product of such an Indoctrination System.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
right poo boy, commies under the bed, they're fluoridating our water, there's a list of two hundred known communists in the state department, yada yada yada.
To quote A.A. Milne, you are a bear of very little brain.
Go read None Dare Call It Treason - you'll have a ball.
Clif Kuplen at 2:06PM on Jun 27th 2008
80. Clif
Could you please steer me to where it is written by a scientic source that there was spectrographic evidence of thermate in the wreckage of building 7.
robert okane at 2:07PM on Jun 27th 2008
81. Hey German Guy........... the ONE shooting in the country of a black by a white guy?
joe at 2:31PM on Jun 27th 2008
82. Okane-
Thermite (thermate) whatever, was discovered by Prof. Jones at BYU. In the steel shards of WTC 1 & 2. Since this revelation, Prof. Jones does a Mokele- (Poof!)
Where did he go? Find him for me, please.
And while you're at it, where are the surveillance tapes from around the Pentagon? Oh, that's right, they went Poof! too. Just like the wreckage of a multi-ton aircraft that "disintegrated" upon impact with the fortress that is the Pentagon.
Oh, that? Ignore the smell of Cordite reported by military types who get a hard-on just thinking about that stuff.
Robert at 2:33PM on Jun 27th 2008
83. Joe
Do you know of others?
The point being that they have absolutely no journalistic integrity of any kind. There are plenty of examples of gang shootings, drug shootings, black on black, black on white, women by ex boyfriends, school, work etc. Any one of those would have been a more legitimate basis for their contention.
The example they point to is some fringe scenario drugged up crack head scuffling with a gang banger and shooting him. If that isnt liberal spin, there is no such thing. Is that really supposed to pique my sympathy?
Cenk even commented that a jury would say well it is only a gang banger black this white guy shot so its ok. Right cenk, jury nulification for a white guy. Happens all the time.
The deceit is just so callous, smug and reprehensible, even for what constitutes normalcy for the average lib. You spoon fed indoctrinated lemming dont even see the difference.
german guy at 3:11PM on Jun 27th 2008
84. robert, everything must everything eventually create a hard on?
the smell of Cordite?? really?
hannah at 3:23PM on Jun 27th 2008
85. Robert
Aluminum alloys from commercial aircraft are known to melt between 475 degrees celsius and 640 degrees celsius depending upon the particular alloy.
If you look at plane crashes with fires, you will notice many of them the skin of the aircraft melts away from the fire. Air France flight 358 crashed and burned in an open area/field. The fire in the wings did not burn,but the aluminum skin melted off was the fire from the contents of the plane, the seats, clothing and other combustible including the chemical oxygen generators. Look at the photos on the internet of Air France flt. 358.
I asked Clif what his source was for the evidence of thermate/thermite at building 7.
Dr Jones has been criticized by his university and has been placed on paid leave. Dr Jones has not been able to get his paper on 9/11 published in any established, peer reviewed mainstream science journal.
robert okane at 3:28PM on Jun 27th 2008
86. Once again....
While many blogs are written by journalists, most are not.
TYT makes no more pretense of "journalism" than Dinesh D'Souza, Ada Calhoun, Ben Greenman or Mo Rocca. (I sure wish Jeff Hoard would return)
Complaints of "poor journalism" regarding these AOL "newsblogs" is stupid.
Captain Negative at 3:40PM on Jun 27th 2008
87. Could you please steer me to where it is written by a scientic source that there was spectrographic evidence of thermate in the wreckage of building 7.
robert okane at 2:07PM on Jun 27th 2008
xxx
I think I saw it online, but that wasn't my original source.
If you google thermate and building seven, you might have some luck. If you find a good explanation, please post it. It's the one piece of information that I wish I had an explanation for.
Where I heard this was from an engineer on C-span. It was his field of expertise.
The guy was IIRC thoroughly vetted and putting his reputation on the line, but he had spectrographic analysis and evidence he'd done and that had been done by others.
I am very skeptical of this sort of thing, and I was watching as an unconvinced disbeliever.
I haven't read an IR spectrophotometer myself since the stone age, but if you've ever done it, you can follow a walked through explanation of the data. Different organic reactive groups like ketones, hydroxyls, etc. have a telltale spike on the graph.
It's been a couple of years ago, and I've been hoping to run across some explanation since.
Everything else I've heard could I think be explained away fairly plausibly given the fog surrounding the event but evidence of thermate would be a different matter unless there's some other reason it were there or some chemical reaction could have resulted in creation of the product or the less likely false read. I just don't know.
Clif Kuplen at 3:39PM on Jun 27th 2008
88. Just look at video, readily available on the Internet, and watch those buildings coming down with, "fresh eyes."
At least look at photos of the collapsed towers and the, "central columns." Notice that the tops ot the remnants of the columns are cut at precise angles. That isn't the result of collapse. Those central columns were CUT.
But that's a major problem in itself. The CRIME SCENE was cut up, hauled away and sold, overseas, for scrap metal.
Some of us may well be driving cars with components made from 9-11 steel.
Watch videos of firefighters who were at the scene. They talk about serial explosions as the buildings came down.
WTC#7 really is a, "smoking gun."
Show us a single other steel framed structure like the two towers and WTC #7 which completely collapsed into their own footpritnts due to fire.
Captain Negative at 3:49PM on Jun 27th 2008
89. I asked Clif what his source was for the evidence of thermate/thermite at building 7.
___________
Give him a minute he has to copy his novel response from a word document. Looks likes he has four or five responses and just rotates them. Or he may be down for his afternoon nap I know my grandpa does that everyday. I know Clif I'll spare you the response "If I could perform a complete thought you would address me" "I cannot debate intelligently so I am a neocon" "Im a fascist" "26%". See gramps I saved you a whole page.
Bryan at 3:51PM on Jun 27th 2008
90. Photos of remnants of central colums. Those colums were cut.
http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=messageboard.viewThread&entryID=42142968&categoryID=0&IsSticky=0&groupID=106491357&Mytoken=58C3F635-1C30-42CB-B9C1482D3B4182304877407
Captain Negative at 3:57PM on Jun 27th 2008