Comments on: Chris Dodd’s Speech on FISA Debate http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/ Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:11:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: David Pleasant http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2219 David Pleasant Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:36:31 +0000 http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2219 Dodd continues: The point has never been to cripple these companies, but to bring back checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment. Dodd continues: The point has never been to cripple these companies, but to bring back checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment.

]]> By: David Pleasant http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2218 David Pleasant Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:32:24 +0000 http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2218 Dodd continues: I'm here because...I will not see those secrets go quietly into the good night...as Donald Rumsfeld and alberto Gonzales, VP Cheney, and President Bush. I'm here because the truth is not their private property. It belongs to everyone of us and it demands to be heard. State secrets, patritotic duty. Dodd now quoting Mike McConnell: "If you play out the suits at the value of their claim it would bankrupt these companies, so we have to provide liability protection to these private secret entities." McConnell is becoming an accidental truth teller. Notice how how the president's DNI concedes that if the cases went the telecoms would come to trial they would lose. I don't know if that's true at all mr. president, but we can thank Adm McConnell for telling us how he really feels. It's an exaggeration that these companies would actually go bankrupt...they are the wealthiest most successful companies in America. Dodd continues: I’m here because…I will not see those secrets go quietly into the good night…as Donald Rumsfeld and alberto Gonzales, VP Cheney, and President Bush. I’m here because the truth is not their private property. It belongs to everyone of us and it demands to be heard. State secrets, patritotic duty.

Dodd now quoting Mike McConnell: “If you play out the suits at the value of their claim it would bankrupt these companies, so we have to provide liability protection to these private secret entities.”

McConnell is becoming an accidental truth teller. Notice how how the president’s DNI concedes that if the cases went the telecoms would come to trial they would lose. I don’t know if that’s true at all mr. president, but we can thank Adm McConnell for telling us how he really feels. It’s an exaggeration that these companies would actually go bankrupt…they are the wealthiest most successful companies in America.

]]> By: David Pleasant http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2217 David Pleasant Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:19:16 +0000 http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2217 Dodd continues: Cooperation in warranted wiretapping is not at stake today. Collusion in warrantless wiretapping is. And the warrant makes all the difference. Because it is precisely the court's blessing that brings presidential power under the Rule of Law. In sum, we know that giving the telecoms their day in court and giving the people their day in court would not jeopardize one ounce of our security and it could only expose one's secrets -- the extent of our president's lawbreaking and the extent of his corporations complicity. And that our president will go to the mat to defend that he will keep from the light of the courtroom at all costs...Will George Bush's secret die with his presidency or will it be open to the generations to come? Dodd continues: Cooperation in warranted wiretapping is not at stake today. Collusion in warrantless wiretapping is. And the warrant makes all the difference. Because it is precisely the court’s blessing that brings presidential power under the Rule of Law. In sum, we know that giving the telecoms their day in court and giving the people their day in court would not jeopardize one ounce of our security and it could only expose one’s secrets — the extent of our president’s lawbreaking and the extent of his corporations complicity. And that our president will go to the mat to defend that he will keep from the light of the courtroom at all costs…Will George Bush’s secret die with his presidency or will it be open to the generations to come?

]]> By: David Pleasant http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2215 David Pleasant Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:01:49 +0000 http://politicalchase.com/2007/12/17/chris-dodds-speech-on-fisa-debate/#comment-2215 Dodd: Quoting Judge Walker on on his ruling regarding compromising national security in court -- "The state's secret privilege still has its limits. When the court recognizes and respects the executive's constitutional duty to protect the nation from threats, the court also takes seriously it's constitutional duty to ajudicate the disputes that come before it. To defer to a blanket assertion of secrecy here would be to abdicate that duty, particularly because the very subject matter of this litigation has been so publicly aired...but dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice for no apparent enhancement of security." Dodd: Quoting Judge Walker on on his ruling regarding compromising national security in court — “The state’s secret privilege still has its limits. When the court recognizes and respects the executive’s constitutional duty to protect the nation from threats, the court also takes seriously it’s constitutional duty to ajudicate the disputes that come before it. To defer to a blanket assertion of secrecy here would be to abdicate that duty, particularly because the very subject matter of this litigation has been so publicly aired…but dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice for no apparent enhancement of security.”

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