fisa
Leahy-Feinstein Substitute Patriot Act Amendments Approved by Judiciary Committee
The Leahy-Feinstein substitute bill I discussed in my piece this morning about the USA PATRIOT Act was just approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee 13-8, with only minor word changes.
Amendments proposed by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) that would have required that the target of a National Security Letter have some alleged connection to terrorism, and [...]
Feingold: We’re Not the Prosecutor Committee, We’re the Judiciary Committee
Most of the senators on the Judiciary Committee today seem to be bending over backwards to give the FBI and Justice Department every benefit of the doubt when it comes to the tools they say they need to fight terrorism. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) just warned of all the people out there “that are trying [...]
Sex and the Single Wolf
Are there really any “lone wolves” engaging in dangerous terrorist liaisons? That’s what some opponents of section 6001(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act are asking.
Lots of Democrats now concede that Congress overreacted a bit after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to give sweeping authority to the FBI to conduct various kinds of sneaky searching and snooping [...]
Bill Introduced to Repeal Telecom Immunity
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and committee members Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.), Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are expected to introduced in the Senate today a bill that would repeal the immunity granted to telecommunications companies under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) passed last year. The immunity provisions ensured the dismissal of [...]
Patriot Act Renewal Debate Kicks Off Over Party Lines
Eight years after it was passed, the USA Patriot Act remains among the most controversial pieces of counterterrorism legislation in the so-called “war on terror.”
One Need Look No Further Than John Yoo for Evidence of Executive Lawbreaking
The explosive inspectors general report released on Friday makes one thing increasingly clear: the Bush White House knew that it was probably breaking the law.
From the report itself, John Yoo’s Office of Legal Counsel memo — and the lightning-fast reporting of Spencer Ackerman, Marc Ambinder and others on Friday — we now know that President [...]
Long-Awaited Warrantless Surveillance Report Finally Released
Last year, the Democratic Congress enthusiastically acquiesced to President George W. Bush’s insistence on carving out individualized suspicion and other privacy protections from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Democrats did so to preempt the charge of being weak on national security from the presidential campaign — didn’t work — and then-Sen. Barack Obama, who [...]
Holder Dodges Questions About Legality of Bush-Era Warrantless Wiretapping
Pressed by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) on his view of whether the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program was illegal, Attorney General Eric Holder said the program was “inconsistent” with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, but repeatedly refused to say it was “illegal,” or that President Bush broke the law — despite previous statements [...]
Judge Dismisses Wiretapping Cases Against Telecoms, but Al-Haramain Can Proceed
A federal district court judge in California yesterday dismissed a slew of lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies that allegedly helped the U.S. government engage in warrantless wiretapping.
Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco dismissed the cases because Congress explicitly gave the telecom companies immunity from civil suits in a 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [...]
The World, Through Dick Cheney’s Eyes
One more thing about former Vice President Dick Cheney and torture, loosely connected to Ross Douthat’s New York Times column. If you’re Dick Cheney, right now, it’s got to feel like history is repeating itself. My copy of Bart Gellman’s Cheney biography, “Angler,” is at home right now, but if you go through it, you’ll [...]
Blogroll
- The Huffington Post
- Talking Points Memo
- TPMMuckraker
- Pro Publica
- The Raw Story
- The Plum Line
- Matthew Yglesias
- Small Wars Journal
- Abu Muqawama
- FiveThirtyEight
- Daily Kos
- Open Left
- Think Progress
- Real Clear Politics
- The Big Picture
- Consumerist
- Andrew Sullivan
- Eschaton
- Crooks and Liars
- Grist
- Capital Eye
- Taxpayers for Common Sense
- Open Congress
- Ben Smith
- Michael Calderone
- Political Animal

