Slate magazine runs a podcast called Gabfest, featuring Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz. This week’s episode also aired on the POTUS election channel on XM Radio.

At about 22:14 into the program, the discussion turns to FISA and telecom immunity. And the “point” was repeatedly made that the topic is unbearably dull, even to listeners of a quasi-alternative political show.

I couldn’t always be sure which was John and which was David, so I’m supplying my best guesses.  Read more 

Searing.  Read more 

Modified rapture.  Read more 

Let’s start with the bio:

John Ashcroft was the United States attorney general from 2001 to 2005. He now heads a consulting firm that has telecommunications companies as clients.

Hey, I wonder if Ashcroft’s firm funnelled any money to Rockefeller? That would be too, too funny, wouldn’t it?

And now the nut graf from Crisco Johnny’s at-this-point entirely predictable Op-Ed from the Times:

If the attorney general of the United States says that an intelligence-gathering operation has been determined to be lawful…

Note the very revealing use of the passive voice. Determined by whom? Some Federalist Society operative chained up in Cheney’s dungeon under the Naval Observatory?

We know that Bush bypassed the “sole means” for determining legality, the FISA Court, until 2006, when Democrats got elected to Congress. So, when the telcos were briefed that Bush’s program of warrantless surveillance was legal, did they ask “Who made the determination and why?” If they did, I want to know the answer, and so should Congress. If they did not, they were negligent, and should be held to account.

… a company should be able to rely on that determination.

Isn’t it pretty to think so.

“Should,” indeed, except in the unlikely event that the government has been taken over by a gang of criminals.

Like now.  Read more 

 Read more 

Orrin Hatch has this to say on retroactive immunity for the telcos in the FISA [gag] Reform Bill:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), also on the Judiciary and Intelligence panels, said the documents did not change his position that the surveillance activities “were and are” lawful.

Senator, you’re threatening my cranial integrity.

Because if the surveilllance was so lawful, what the Fuck do they need retroactive immunity for???  Read more 

Just call (202) 224-6472 and ask the simple, courteous question:

Is this the number I call to get retroactive immunity for illegal acts?

Call now! And again, be courteous!  Read more 

Fred Hiatt cranks the bogosity knob up to 11. Please, somebody make it stop? My ears are bleeding:

There is one major area of disagreement between the administration and House Democrats where we think the administration has the better of the argument: the question of whether telecommunications companies that provided information to the government without court orders should be given retroactive immunity from being sued. House Democrats are understandably reluctant to grant that wholesale protection without understanding exactly what conduct they are shielding, and the administration has balked at providing such information. But the telecommunications providers seem to us to have been acting as patriotic corporate citizens in a difficult and uncharted environment.

Fred, it just seems that way to you because you’re the Village whore.  Read more 

I think he’s talking about a Disney movie:

My secret super duper Senate sources are telling me that this bill has a long way to pass. To take a small example, the broadcast flag, which the EFF detests, passed in the Senate Committee, but Senator Sununu made it clear that he’s going to revisit the issue on the floor. There are also concerns about new tax measures in the bill, which will prompt more fighting on the floor. Stevens just doesn’t have the 60 needed to pass the measure, and it’s not clear that Frist even wants to schedule the time for it. In addition, the partisanized nature of the net neutrality vote means that Senators are becoming entrenched.  Read more