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North Carolina Senators (VotemOut!)
I live in a small southern town just about smack dab in the middle of North Carolina, about 20 miles from the Virginia line. Both Senators from North Carolina are Republicans. They are Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr.
Both voted to pass the recent FISA amendment. Both of them received emails from me before the vote, urging them to vote against the bill. Yesterday, I received a response from Dole via regular mail. You’ll see it below. To make it larger, just click the button in the upper right of the iPaper. Then click your Back button to come back here…
(NOTE TO DOLE: You should use less paper. I mean, gee, you made me fill in my email address there on your website; why not USE IT?)
Response To Response
Senator Dole,
Your argument that ‘laws must be updated’ is not at all championed by your supporting statements in the same paragraph. You speak of communications increasingly routed through the US as a reason that the 1978 FISA legislation was inadequate. In fact, the FISA bill as it was prior to the 2008 amendment addressed that question completely, allowing even for accidental and incidental monitoring of US citizens, as well as targeted monitoring of US citizens. You state that the FISA bill as it stood was not effective in today’s world. The truth is that FISA worked just fine.
All that was required was a warrant obtained AFTER the surveillance began. This proved to be too much for the Bush administration, as shown by their flagrant disobedience of the law. The version of FISA that you supported practically removes all judicial oversight from the process. Where the original law required a warrant within 72 hours, your version allows up to 60 days, with extensions. Even then, with the FISA court replaced by the District court, and then required to agree with whatever the Executive branch tells them, there is little real oversight left.
Obviously, it was the bona fide judicial oversight requirement which needed the most ‘updating’.
You start your next paragraph with a statement that is true, as far as it goes. What it leaves out is the fact that those tools already existed. FISA was a capable instrument for clandestine surveillance before you voted to amend it. You also fail to state that it actually gives the government the right to collect data on literally anybody and everybody, without actually having to prove to anyone that there’s a reason.
ScamFlag: The Little Kid Effect
Then, in the same paragraph, you change subjects completely and try to explain away the immunity section. (HAR HAR HAR HAR) You have to understand, Senator, that I irregularly post about Fake EMails here at Wordout, trying to help people avoid scams. There are things I call ScamFlags, and lady, you sent me a classic.
I call it the Little Kid Effect. You can tell many scammers by the way they act when they get to the part of the scam that they think is the most important. Have you ever seen a child jump up and down giving you a million reasons, all at once, why she should have …whatever it was? That’s the thing I’m talking about.
They’re trying so hard not to screw it up that they never notice how obvious they are. It shows up in letters in several ways. Here, it’s a ‘run-on paragraph’, where the topic changes to something totally unrelated. Having the ability to monitor communications has absolutely nothing to do with the retroactive immunity granted to telecoms complicit in the president’s illegal efforts.
You assert that these corporations should be granted immunity, based on their belief in the good word of the government of the United States, for assisting the NSA ‘in the aftermath’ of 9/11. You claim that these corporations and citizens responded in ‘good faith to a request by public officials’. What you say has some emotional value in sound bites, but holds no legal water at all.
Good Faith? Isn’t That A Legal Term?
The FISA legislation was originally set up to control exactly this sort of thing. It was the result of a long investigation headed by Frank Church, focused on wiretapping abuses by former administrations. FISA established the controls over our various agencies in an attempt to eliminate the Constitutional violations which had become commonplace.
These ‘patriotic’ corporations knew that what they were asked to do was illegal. The administration knew it was illegal. You know it was illegal. The entire nation knows it was illegal. Good faith doesn’t even enter into it.
There was no ‘good faith’ in the Bush administration. There was no ‘good faith’ in these corporations. And there is no ‘good faith’ in your performance on this issue.
The reference you make to ‘classified programs vital to our national security’ being compromised is simply bullshit. Those programs would naturally only be revealed and discussed within the confines of judicial restriction and would never be made public. The important thing is that a judge, a member of the Judicial branch, would be able to render a decision.
You, the 110th Congress and George Bush have made that impossible.
The Ghost Of McCarthy
You go on to make a vague statement about fighting enemies around the world (as we have always done). Then you try to invoke the Constitution as your guide. I guess you’ve forgotten from one paragraph to the next what you, yourself have done to that document. The bill you passed literally destroys my 4th amendment rights. Your vote helped to usher in the 21st century’s version of McCarthyism, where everyone who disagrees with the federal government is a potential enemy of the state.
The truth, madamn Senator, is that FISA as it existed was well-suited to the task at hand. It needed no ‘modernization’ to accomplish the goals both you and the Bush administration have stated. Your response to the legitimate concerns of America contains only lies, mis-stated truths, and empty rhetoric.
You see, Lizzie, I read the original bill. I remember when it was a thing on the nightly news. I remember what it was all about.
It was about making sure the guys with all the money and power couldn’t just walk all over the guys with little or none. It was about controlling a government that thought it could do anything behind the veil of ‘national security’. It was about avoiding the kinds of illegal mass surveillance that the current administration has instituted. And it was about stopping people like you from protecting them.
I read the new bill, too. It was all about removing the Judicial oversight of clandestine operations engaged by the Executive branch. It was about backdating immunity (expressely forbidden in the Constitution) in an attempt to hide from view forever the abuses of the Bush administration. It was about hiding the truth, and covering your own ass, wasn’t it?
Fool Me Once…
I voted for ya, Lizzie, but I won’t make that mistake again. I see now that when the real tests are before you, when it’s America that’s on the line, you fail like the wilted flower that you are. You don’t represent us. You’re just another ‘professional politician’. You know what they say: Fool me once…
So go ahead and add me to whichever list you choose, because I promise that I am against you. As a patriot, a man who has read considerably, thought deeply and considered carefully, I declare myself opposed to your continued occupation of any seat in either House of Congress, or any other political role which you may aspire to.
Elizabeth Dole, I consider you to be an enemy of the United States of America.
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I am Jon, and that up there is a scam letter from Lizzie Dole.
