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Keith Sees FISA Loophole for Criminal Prosecution

Started by baratunde aka jack turner · 1 year ago

An interesting take on Senator Obama, Telecom Immunity and the potential for criminal prosecution. Keith’s advice to Obama:

“The Republicans are going to call you the names any which way, Senator. They’re going to cry regardless, Senator. And, as the old line goes, give them something to cry about!”
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10 comments

  • I'm not with Keith on this one. Not by a longshot.
  • What aren't you with?
  • Love the new look. Good stuff.
  • Barack cant run away from this! he's going to have to take some difficult stances every once in a while.
  • it's hard to hear, but keith is totally right
  • The bill in the Senate expands warrantless wiretapping and grants civil immunity to the telcos, meaning that the various suits moving ahead would be stopped cold in their tracks. Olbermann's narrow focus on the possibility of potential future criminal prosecution *if* Bush doesn't issue pardons (or I suppose if the pardons get overturned by the Supreme Court) seems a bit of a red herring right now.

    If you're an Obama supporter who would like to urge him to do the right thing on FISA, please consider joining the Senator Obama - Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right group on my.barackobama.com. It's now over 6000 members -- already the fifth largest broup on myBO -- and continuing to grow rapidly.

    And we've got a wiki!

    jon
  • Why can't there be both civil and criminal prosecution for violation of the 4th Amendment?

    What the telecos want is not to be punished for doing something the government ordered them to do. OTOH, the telecos could always refuse to do business with the Feds, but the Feds would have retaliated in some fashion. Some telecos are simply refusing to do business with the Feds, because the Feds not only placed them in liability, but stuck them with the check and haven't paid the bill.

    Obama taught Constitutional Law, didn't he? Then he should know that the protection of the 4th Amendment is not a political football he can dodge. If he's going to uphold the Constitution (as stated in the POTUS oath of office), the least he can do is protect it before he takes office.

    He may have denounced the DLC, but he's sure engaging in their strategies and that's giving me pain.
  • Here is my concern about the criminal liability. As wrong as it may be for the telecoms to have been wiretapping people, they did it at the behest of the government, who gave them the old "if you don't do it, people will die" stuff. Isn't it the height of gall for the government to ask a private company to engage in illegal activity for the sake of national security and then to criminally prosecute them once they do? More importantly, isn't this an iron-clad entrapment defense?
  • George W. Bush’s sentence-by-sentence speaking skills are deteriorating. Apparently, this may be due to a mental illness called “presenile dementia.” Bush may or may not be secretly still drinking heavily. Bush lied, and thousands of people died. Bush suffers from narcissism and megalomania. Moreover, Bush has been arrested three times. Bush was arrested for disorderly conduct. Bush was arrested for stealing. Bush was also arrested for a serious crime—driving under the influence of alcohol. There are reasons to believe that Bush suffers from a learning disability. Bush’s learning disability would explain a lot of things. All in all, Bush is a severely mentally ill individual. Bush is not fit to be the president of the United States.

    Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
    B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
    Messiah College, Grantham, PA
  • very hard to hear.
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