Monday, December 17, 2007

The Lion Roars

Sen. Edward Kennedy, during the FISA filibuster...
The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retro-active immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

Goddamn right, Teddy. Nicely done.

Fantastic job tonite by Chris Dodd who has been promising he would stop any FISA bill with telecom immunity, and led he charge. More on this later...
[h/t: Kos]

UPDATE: C&L has the video (and a transcript)...

1 comment:

Noah said...

NPR, as I read your post and comment on it, is doing a brief piece on it that I am sure they will flesh-out later.

Some things that really struck me were comments about "we need to hold more entities accountable, not less" and the notion that not holding entities accountable for past violations of the law is a de facto endorsement of that activity.

As Kennedy said, indeed no American will feel secure in our emails and phone conversations not being watched by the government.

Kennedy's thoughts go hand-in-hand with a book I read recently called Dangerous Times. It's all about past government usurpations of our freedoms, especially speech, and is a clear warning for what this administration is doing to us with unprecedented levels of technology for spying at their disposal.