Are the Democrats Dumb or Malicious?
Think Progress (via memeorandum) has the story tonight that Democrats Harry Reid and Russ Feingold want to put the telecom companies back on the hook for helping the government with its terrorist-related investigations. That’s no shock. What I don’t understand, though, is why they and the bulk of the Democratic Party is so hell-bent on beating down these companies.
Here’s the situation in brief.
Several years ago, our government decided that it needed to start looking at communications made to and from people it suspected were members of, or were working closely with, Islamist groups hostile to us. The communications were not domestic, meaning that they did not take place entirely inside the United States, but were international and went through equipment owned by the US. After extensive legal consultations, the government decided that these communications were not covered by the FISA law, which covered only domestic conversations. So the government started intercepting them without fully consulting the FISA judges to get a warrant. To do that, they asked the telecommunications companies that owned the equipment to help them. They provided the companies with letters outlining the government’s position on the matter. Various civil rights groups thought this was wrong and they started to challenge the interceptions in court. They also filed suit against several of the companies. Congress decided, after some time, to revise the FISA laws to encompass these communications, because they were not (since they’re not domestic communications, duh). Republicans thought it was important to indemnify the telecommunications companies for their cooperation because they acted in good faith and on the best possible information. In other words, the telecommunications companies had no reason to believe they were helping the government do anything illegal (and indeed they were not, since no law covered the particular situation). Democrats want to leave the companies liable to suit under the new law that they’re trying to pass as we speak because….
…well that’s the thing. Why do they want the telecommunications companies to defend themselves when common-sense and all the evidence says they were acting in good faith?
As I puzzle out a possible answer, I’m not led to a very good place. At this point, it looks like the Democrats want to make sure that if the government approaches any private company or individual for help in a situation where there is no clear-cut law, the company refuse because at some point later it will be sued and there will be no expectation of good-faith. This means that if some other unexpected situation comes up as we continue to fight the Islamists who are daily attempting to subjugate us, the government will get no help at all from any company or its citizens because there will always be the menace of a lawsuit. No sane CEO would agree to cooperate with the government, even if the government laid out a strong case why it would not be legally liable, knowing that the government’s guarantee was worth less than the paper on which the case was printed. If the Democrats allow the telecom companies to get dragged into court, they will have effectively cut off any possibility of future assistance from any private organization or citizen. They will have hamstrung the government by forcing it to go back to Congress to get a specific law written or to get permission from a judge to do what it should not need permission to do. Effectively, the terrorists will always be able to move faster than us. That’s a very dangerous proposition.
One of the Islamists go-to tactics has always been to use our own legal system to tie us up and weaken us. They look for cracks in our system into which they can insinuate themselves like rats sneaking into a corn crib. They are not stupid. I had assumed that Harry Reid and the rest of the Congressional Democrats were not stupid either. This may not be a very good assumption on my part. Because if the Democrats really understand the implications of what they’re doing right now then they’re purposefully trying to make it tougher for us to catch or kill our enemies. If they follow the very likely effect of their opposition to immunity, this is the only place it can go.
I don’t know which one is true here. I do know that neither one is a good thing for any of us.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Justice Kennedy Has Decided that He’s Going to Run Things for a While.
- Democrats Came to Give a Lecture, But Went to School Instead
- Democrats Vote to Drive Gas Prices Higher
Category: Our New Democratic Overlords, The Long War Here At Home
Malicious.
Like this comment.
Moron.
Well, where does your logic lead? You tell me why they're opposing a good faith exception for the companies.
Malicious….
The thing you have to realize is that the Democrats don't care about anything but power, so while you make a perfectly sound argument, understand that your goals are not their goals & your enemies are not their enemies.
They don't care about the actual effect this insane pursuit will have on big companies because when they are in power, they will force the companies to cooperate with their own policies. The rules they claim are important principles now are only for Republicans, to inhibit Republican success. Like campaign finance spending limits; This is a very important principle to the Dems because it promotes equal opportunity for both candidates & prevents special interests and the wealthy from buying the Presidency. (I mean, from buying a Republican Pres…..obviously, it's okay if they want to buy a Democrat.)
So it is really not important how bad this would be for our country. What is important is those companies learn the lesson that there will be consequences for cooperating with Republicans.
Sen. Dodd is a malicious crook, who just got nailed for getting preferential loans from Countrywide. The MSM has forgotten that already & the nutroots are doing their moonbat squeaking loudly.
BTW, Dodd's father was a crook too and was censured for financial irregularities back when the Senate still had a [minimal] sense of ethics. Like father, like son.
Feingold is delusional & is still looking for Elvis.
Yeah…Dodd. That is a whole huge story waiting for some enterprising reporter to get all over it. The guy ought to be too bush shredding his financial records to make any mischief with the telecom companies, wouldn't you think?
Malicious. I settled this question 30 years ago as a child of the Left. The Left's hate, delusion and will to undermine political good faith is simply impossible to overestimate. The Left, now the democratic party, does not and never has accepted the premise of political coexistence, goodwill, shared power or shared interest. Reagan, with his own pesonal experience, understood. Bush doesn't, and McCain refuses to. And we're all paying.
The communications were not domestic, meaning that they did not take place entirely inside the United States, but were international and went through equipment owned by the US.
You don't know this, or any of that. The government refuses to say exactly what the program entailed.
All we know is that the government was spying on communications where one end was in the United States. This is a crime under FISA. The government broke the law and the telecoms helped them.
If the telecoms did not break the law, then the lawsuits have no merit and will be thrown out. Pardon me for thinking they wouldn't be looking for amnesty if they hadn't done something they knew to be illegal.
Every Democrat was willing to pass a bill to cover foreign-to-foreign communications; it's Bush who has held it up by insisting on amnesty for telecoms (which, unfortunately, the Democrats are going to grant). So Bush, having spied on Americans in violation of the law, is willing to hold up a bill to target foreign terrorist communications because he would rather spy on Americans than fight terrorists.
If you have any proof that the program was only aimed at foreign-to-foreign communications, let's have it. There is none, because the government was spying on communications where one end was in the U.S. And without a warrant, that's illegal.
T.B., you are incorrect. The government has told us what the communications were. So did at least two major US newspapers. You say that the President "clearly" acted against the law, but that's not at all clear. Congress is doing what they are to actually create law to cover the situation.
Also, you are incredibly narrow about wondering why the telecoms might need immunity. Don't you think it's even a little bit possible that these companies might not want to spend the millions of dollars it will take to mount a court defense? How about we apply your "if you're innocent, you don't have to worry" defense to individuals. You'd enjoy that, yes?
Au contraire…..maybe you should read this most interesting post to see what real life lawsuits are like vs. the one you picture in Utopiaville.
I respect your point of view, but your position may be mired in an exceedingly rigid form of paranoid xenophobia.
Your interpretation of Islamic cultural influence as your own 'subjugation' is the rigid part. Muslim values will influence Western culture, just as Western culture has influenced thought in Asia, Africa and the Middle East; this is how culture works, there is no 'subjugation' to be avoided, when we have contact with each other we have an undeniable exchange of influence. You will never be able to enforce the cognitive isolation that you apparently experience as freedom. Since you interpret the possibility of mutual influence so negatively, you also assume anyone who might have that influence on you to be your 'enemy' and therefore a legitimate target for surveillance, capture, elimination, etc.
Ease up, guy. It's a big world. If you quit trying to see everything that's not you as something dangerous you might find an awful lot of value in the things that don't currently make sense to you. In the meantime, you appear to be trying to live out a voyeuristic fantasy through your government–if you're that curious about what someone is doing, just ask. I think you'll find most the anti-American activists you're so concerned about to be more than willing to let you know what they think–but be careful, what you find out from them may 'subjugate' you.
dav – Perhaps you missed the missives from Osama bin Laden and his ilk, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei, and a few thousand Islamic holy men all saying that every Muslim's sacred goal is to beat the infidels into submission.
You speak a fine mumbo-jumbo, but the Islamists tend to disagree heavily with you. If you get a chance, drop a note to Daniel Pearl's widow about the "undeniable exchange of influence" her husband experienced, would you?
rrpjr
I was on the Democrat National Staff of Gene McCarthy in '68 & Fritz Mondale in '84. I learned that there is nothing "democratic" about the Democrat Party. I had some good memories [John Podesta working for me in Brooklyn during the '68 NY Primary & The Chicago Convention], but all in all, the majority of Dems are like Harold Ickes [whom I worked for] and not John Podesta [who is a decent human being, if misguided.]
Tony Podesta, John's older brother, still calls me "Professor" when he sees me.
Malicious. And often dumb.