Good news! House Democrats stood up to President Bush and defended our Constitution last week.
Here's what happened: As a national security bill moved through Congress, Bush said Democrats would be helping the terrorists if the bill didn't include retroactive immunity for lawbreaking phone companies. Such immunity would mean a "get out of jail free" card for companies that helped Bush illegally spy on the calls and emails of innocent Americans—halting lawsuits currently being heard in court.
These lawsuits may be the only way Americans ever find out how far Bush went in breaking the law. Instead of caving in, House Democrats pushed back hard. Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared, "The president is wrong, and he knows it." And on Friday, House Democrats passed the security bill without immunity for lawbreakers and with new checks and balances on the Bush administration!
MoveOn members and other progressives helped make this victory happen. Tens of thousands of phone calls and emails—and hundreds of thousands of petition signatures—demanded that Democrats stand on principle. Over the course of several months, we kept the pressure on.
The fight's not over. All eyes now turn to the Senate. But when progressives win important fights—and when Democratic elected leaders show backbone after an outpouring of public sentiment—it's important to take a step back and celebrate. Together, our activism made a big difference!
Below are two articles describing our victory in the House last week. One ran this weekend in the New York Times. The other is by former prosecutor Glenn Greenwald, blogging about the victory at Salon.
Thanks for all you do.
–Nita, Adam G., Justin, Tanya, Anna, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, March 17th, 2008
P.S. You can see how your representative voted here. A "Yea" vote was for the good bill and against immunity for lawbreakers:
EXCERPTS
WASHINGTON—After its first secret session in a quarter-century, the House on Friday rejected retroactive immunity for the phone companies that took part in the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program after the Sept. 11 attacks, and it voted to place greater restrictions on the government's wiretapping powers.
The decision, by a largely party-line vote of 213 to 197, is one of the few times when Democrats have been willing to buck up against the White House on a national security issue.
...The House bill approved Friday includes three key elements: it would refuse retroactive immunity to the phone companies, providing special authority instead for the courts to decide the liability issue; it would add additional judicial restrictions on the government's wiretapping powers while plugging certain loopholes in foreign coverage; and it would create a Congressional commission to investigate the N.S.A. program.
...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was sharply critical of the president's assessment that the legislation would not make America safer. "The president is wrong, and he knows it," she said on Thursday.
Read the full story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/washington/14cnd-fisa.html
As impressive as the House vote itself was, more impressive still was the floor debate which preceded it. I can't recall ever watching a debate on the floor of either House of Congress that I found even remotely impressive—until today. One Democrat after the next—of all stripes—delivered impassioned, defiant speeches in defense of the rule of law, oversight on presidential eavesdropping, and safeguards on government spying. They swatted away the GOP's fear-mongering claims with the dismissive contempt such tactics deserve, rejecting the principle that has predominated political debate in this country since 9/11: that the threat of the Terrorists means we must live under the rule of an omnipotent President and a dismantled constitutional framework.
...It's hard not to believe that there's at least some significant sea change reflected by this. They have seen that they can defy the President even on matters of Terrorism, and the sky doesn't fall in on them. Quite the opposite: an outspoken opponent of telecom amnesty, warrantless eavesdropping and the Iraq War was just elected to the House from Denny Hastert's bright red district, and before that, Donna Edwards ousted long-time incumbent Al Wynn by accusing him of being excessively complicit with the Bush agenda.
Virtually every one I know who has expended lots of efforts and energy on these FISA and telecom issues has assumed from the start—for reasons that are all too well-known—that we would lose. And we still might. But it's hard to deny that the behavior we're seeing from House Democrats is substantially improved, quite commendably so, as compared to the last year and even before that. It's very rare when there are meaningful victories and I think it's important to acknowledge when they happen.
Read the full story here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3498&id=12324-7018451-6wG1B_&t=61
No comments:
Post a Comment