Anyone who voted for or agreed with the recent FISA bill is, by definition, *not* "strong on privacy rights".

Sorry.

Couldn;t that just as easily be taken as a compliment? That Bloggers have boiled it down well?

c_ray_86 @ 2:

The changing of public opinion is a slow and gradual process, one liberals have lost for a long time and are just starting to reclaim. The return to a more progressive America takes time, no matter how badly neocons may have fucked up in the short term. To not accept and understand this fact that, an uninformed public taken together with a political dialouge skewed against our interests, forces us to take baby steps would be suicidal to the progressive movement.

Destruction is often quick, construction always takes time.

Is Webb supporting the Family Immunity Plan ?

I can't believe I'm going to speak up in defense of someone who voted for the FISA bill but here goes. I think this article was a bit unfair to Webb. It makes it sound like Webb was talking down to the net community when I don't think he was. All he said was that its a complicated issue and that it often gets over simplified in the way its talked about on blogs. I hate to say it but I agree with him. The issue is a complicated one. The NSA has AI software that can process bulk emails and calls and look for particular patterns that might indicate a message that could be part of a terrorist cell. Its impossible, or at least I don't see how perhaps I'm wrong I'm no lawyer, to get a warrant to do that kind of processing. One answer, which I think most people here would advocate, is that you just don't do that kind of bulk processing period. However, I can see that a case could be made for doing that kind of processing with the appropriate safe guards. I don't know enough about the current FISA bill to say for sure, but I'm pretty certain given the past that such safe guards are not in the bill. I'm also sure that there is no justification for giving Telecom companies immunity before we even know what they did. I'm against the bill but what I'm trying to say is that what Webb said was reasonable and not condescending.

c_ray_86 @ 2:

Hitting on the note Webb was trying to make (this is NOT issue specific, I did not support the FISA bill)

You do not want liberal bloggers to fall into the same dogmatic styling as those opposite of them. We do not represent the majority of America's opinion sometimes (simply because we are better informed is not an excuse). There are constant compromises that must be struck in a pragmatic world. If everyone in the party voted like Kuchinich then we would not have power in washington again.

The changing of public opinion is a slow and gradual process, one liberals have lost for a long time and are just starting to reclaim. The return to a more progressive America takes time, no matter how badly neocons may have fucked up in the short term. To not accept and understand this fact that, an uninformed public taken together with a political dialouge skewed against our interests, forces us to take baby steps would be suicidal to the progressive movement.

Again, I am as liberal as they come. But we need pragmatism, and that is how people like Webb and Obama will lead us to a future where the kuchinich liberals will be accepted by the mainstream as mainstream, and this neoconservative bullshit will be a laughed off relic of the past.

Very well put C_Ray. That is pretty much what I was trying to say as well.

Webb is right. Us bloggers have boiled this issue about FISA down to simplistic terms:

It's ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL..!

come on. he's right here. don't be so over-sensitive.

There really is some legitimate criticism to what Webb said. Lets face, even bloggers who do this full time don't have access to the same information as Senators and Congresspersons. And may don't do this full time but blog anyway. We'd like to think that its all about common sense, limited research (that's publically available) and reasoning but none of us has the clearance to see the documents these folks see. And we aren't privy to the dealings that go on behind the scenes. Maybe there is a deal to broker this again when the new administration come on board. We just don't know. And lets face another thing, how bad did it make McCain look that he didn't even bother to show up. My brother, a dittohead, was even floored by that one and his support of McSame is shaken.

I'm not thrilled about the FISA bill but I'm also not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are the people who are supposed to represent us but they have facts we don't. For the most part, I can let my displeasure be known but I'm ALWAYS going to support the Democrat.

Suz in KS @ 17:

For the most part, I can let my displeasure be known but I'm ALWAYS going to support the Democrat.

And don't they know it! Can you name one difference our "Democrat"-controlled congress has from a Republican-controlled one? Same bailouts to big business, no impeachment, no investigations, we're still in Iraq, Guantanamo's still open.

Ah yes the "Democratic" congress is certainly worthy of your support.

Typical inside the beltway mindset. Full of contempt for americans in general. You see our elected politicians are vastly superior in intellect to most of us. We just can't appreciate how very complex these issues are. Why we mustn't damage our brains on these things. Listen to the important congressman and let him decide. Damn bloggers should stick to their video games.

c_ray_86 @ 2:

Hitting on the note Webb was trying to make (this is NOT issue specific, I did not support the FISA bill)

You do not want liberal bloggers to fall into the same dogmatic styling as those opposite of them. We do not represent the majority of America's opinion sometimes (simply because we are better informed is not an excuse). There are constant compromises that must be struck in a pragmatic world. If everyone in the party voted like Kuchinich then we would not have power in washington again.

The changing of public opinion is a slow and gradual process, one liberals have lost for a long time and are just starting to reclaim. The return to a more progressive America takes time, no matter how badly neocons may have fucked up in the short term. To not accept and understand this fact that, an uninformed public taken together with a political dialouge skewed against our interests, forces us to take baby steps would be suicidal to the progressive movement.

Again, I am as liberal as they come. But we need pragmatism, and that is how people like Webb and Obama will lead us to a future where the kuchinich liberals will be accepted by the mainstream as mainstream, and this neoconservative bullshit will be a laughed off relic of the past.

i disagree with your basic premise.

the country has a liberal slant when it comes to most issues. from healthcare, to torture, to preemptive war, to environmental concerns, to equality, to corporate ascendancy, etc. the country is a lot more left than the msm, and the mainstream political parties would ever admit to.

you accept the rights' logic that "liberal values" are not mainstream values.

if this was the case the right would not have to trot out the "cultural war" issues (like gay marriage and flag burning), which the country does lean right.

but, really, if the public was informed about 'the washington consensus', how our economy is skewed to favor the rich, etc. things would be a lot different. but, again, the corporations, the upper class, the msm, and the mainstream factions of BOTH parties would rather we not discuss the policies and the issues that they are dependent on to stay in power.

thus we hear over and over again that a centrist politician (like Obama) has to run to the right in order to get elected. i wonder who that benefits?

The privacy of individuals, like clean air, no longer exists. FISA is not complex. It simply gives those in authority a free pass to listen to the conversations, etc. of Americans. Yet, for some reason, I don't feel more secure. And, I now wonder what is wrong with me.

I was wondering, wouldn't most of the serious A-grade terrorists (not the amateurs who invariably get caught) make a point of not spelling out what they were going to do in e-mails, telephone, fax and the like - hiding it in innocuous mundane looking messages so that it wouldn't be blatantly obvious and likely to be missed by all of this wiretapping, computer scanning for keywords, ECHELON and the like?

Not saying that they wouldn't get some information but I'm sure the terrorists are aware of what can be tapped and how and take steps to avoid it in the first place.

It's not "early".

it is not that the fourth amendment is too complicated for us to understand, it is that a) very few people, including senators, read and understand the details of the legislation and b) reasonable people (including the aclu) can reasonably disagree about what the actual implications of this legislation on the fourth amendment are, how that interplays with other constitutional guarantees and responsibilities, and what the constitution has to say about surveillance and communication modes that didn't exist two hundred plus years ago. if most people who are outraged about the fisa laws are honest, myself included, our opinions about the legislation are based upon summaries provided by other people... who may be summarizing another summary for all we know. webb is simply pointing out that details matter. and to the larger point, this knee-jerk defense of bloggers is just sad-- stop trying to legitimize what is already legitimate by virtue of the energy and value we, ourselves, place in it. running after people for approval is almost as sad as the way the blogosphere is frequently abused by people who have nothing but hatred and vitriol to spew, thus squandering one of the few vehicles we have to save free information and true democracy.

I'm sure kickbacks and payoffs donations from corporate lobbyists make things very complicated ...

MikeD @ 9:

I can't believe I'm going to speak up in defense of someone who voted for the FISA bill but here goes. I think this article was a bit unfair to Webb. It makes it sound like Webb was talking down to the net community when I don't think he was. All he said was that its a complicated issue and that it often gets over simplified in the way its talked about on blogs. I hate to say it but I agree with him. The issue is a complicated one. The NSA has AI software that can process bulk emails and calls and look for particular patterns that might indicate a message that could be part of a terrorist cell. Its impossible, or at least I don't see how perhaps I'm wrong I'm no lawyer, to get a warrant to do that kind of processing. One answer, which I think most people here would advocate, is that you just don't do that kind of bulk processing period. However, I can see that a case could be made for doing that kind of processing with the appropriate safe guards. I don't know enough about the current FISA bill to say for sure, but I'm pretty certain given the past that such safe guards are not in the bill. I'm also sure that there is no justification for giving Telecom companies immunity before we even know what they did. I'm against the bill but what I'm trying to say is that what Webb said was reasonable and not condescending.

Electronic dragnets are unconstitutional. And Congress has never approved of them. Most importantly, there is no connection between data sifting and reducing terrorism. Great Britain has the largest number of closed circuit tv's in the world, yet their crime rate climbs.
Make no mistake, data mining is a political tool.

Webb was a Republican until he switched parties because of the Iraq War. The only reason why he won is because of Allen's infamous 'Macaca' moment. And if it wasn't for bloogers and the internet and Y-tube, we the little people, would have never seen it! We can't trust MSM. If it was up to MSM, they would have quashed it.

Exotic Blue Lensman @ 5:

c_ray_86 @ 2:

The changing of public opinion is a slow and gradual process, one liberals have lost for a long time and are just starting to reclaim. The return to a more progressive America takes time, no matter how badly neocons may have fucked up in the short term. To not accept and understand this fact that, an uninformed public taken together with a political dialouge skewed against our interests, forces us to take baby steps would be suicidal to the progressive movement.

Destruction is often quick, construction always takes time.

This is the biggest load of hogwash I've read in a long time. Both of you. When the Democrats caved to Republican pressure after 911 that was viewd as "quick construction" of you were a Republican. Our country changes on a dime. And Democrats who vote for Bush/Cheney policies are obstructionist. Period.

Bud @ 20:

Suz in KS @ 17:

There really is some legitimate criticism to what Webb said. Lets face, even bloggers who do this full time don't have access to the same information as Senators and Congresspersons. And may don't do this full time but blog anyway. We'd like to think that its all about common sense, limited research (that's publically available) and reasoning but none of us has the clearance to see the documents these folks see. And we aren't privy to the dealings that go on behind the scenes. Maybe there is a deal to broker this again when the new administration come on board. We just don't know. And lets face another thing, how bad did it make McCain look that he didn't even bother to show up. My brother, a dittohead, was even floored by that one and his support of McSame is shaken.

I'm not thrilled about the FISA bill but I'm also not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are the people who are supposed to represent us but they have facts we don't. For the most part, I can let my displeasure be known but I'm
ALWAYS going to support the Democrat.

Spoken like a true patsy. Aren't you tired of being played for a sucker?

payed..... paid for a sucker

MikeD @ 28:

Ahoy @ 16:

MikeD @ 14:

Che's Lounge @ 8:
If "FISA sucks" and "fucking coward" are your idea of wit, my bet would be on Jim.

You're taking it a bit personally aren't you, Mike D?

Is Jim Webb your uncle?

No, I'm not taking it personally. I believe in civilized rational discussion -- even with people that I disagree with. I don't call people names and I try to discourage people, especially people who hold opinions I mostly agree with, from doing the same as I think it makes them look foolish and dilutes the power of their arguments. The difference between the left and the right is that the left has things like justice and rationality on our side. Unlike the right we don't need to yell and scream at people, call them names, or distort the facts. When we do those things we go down to their level and loose the power of our arguments.

are you using the 'right' as a label for Republicans? or are you just name calling? you see, you have undermined your very statement above with wry irony. Thus you have dilluted your own argument by committing the same faux-pas you are simultaneously dennouncing. That makes your position look ridiculous.

I wonder what justifies thinking the country has a "liberal viewpoint" on issues. Other perhaps than what they occasionally say in polls. But when push comes to shove, i.e., legislation, then they sure don't stand up much for any liberal viewpoint. Be it environment, health care, defense, education....
try and put forth any real progressive changes and the public (the majority) recoil out of fear of change. We like to talk about a "new direction", but when any of the real proposals for it are put forth
the public runs to the right....This is what Obama understands, by the way: change will have to come in small increments, and will need someone to really communicate with the public, otherwise the usual right-wing media suspects will distort the conversation.

cg the 2nd @ 34:

Webb can understand complex legislation, but not the arguments coming from the blogosphere.

Isn't the following the point everybody is trying to make?
- the new bill offers retroactive immunity for telecom companies, and gives the president sweeping authority to determine who is participating in a "risky" phone conversation. He therefore no longer needs a warrant to listen in on you. As such, we do not give a crap about whatever "complexities" may exist in the bill.

Not for certain, but I believe you have overstated the provisions of the "new" FISA
law. He(referring to the prez, as you did) cannot on a whim listen in on you or my
telephone conversations. As I understand the law, there must be some clear, known
information that the party being monitored is involved in communcations with a known or suspected terrorist, and that such conversations are with that person(or persons)
outside the US of A. And even if that is the case, the Gov. must go to the FISA
court(even tho after the fact), and obtain a warrant for such evesdropping. Some
one help or correct me if I am wrong or have misinterpreted the law.

The Constitution is a series of RED LINES for the federal government put in place specifically to chain down the federal government... the Constitution is NOT an over simplification. The founding fathers had heard all these same excuses already for many years when they drew up the Constitution. They wrote about WHY they drew these red lines (Federalist Papers) and they spoke about them in personal correspondence.

What is so hard to understand about this?

"Jim Webb is a Very Serious Person. You, little blogger, not so much."

Man is that title ever off base and not even slightly funny.

c_ray_86 @ 2:

Hitting on the note Webb was trying to make (this is NOT issue specific, I did not support the FISA bill)

You do not want liberal bloggers to fall into the same dogmatic styling as those opposite of them. We do not represent the majority of America's opinion sometimes (simply because we are better informed is not an excuse). There are constant compromises that must be struck in a pragmatic world. If everyone in the party voted like Kuchinich then we would not have power in washington again.

The changing of public opinion is a slow and gradual process, one liberals have lost for a long time and are just starting to reclaim. The return to a more progressive America takes time, no matter how badly neocons may have fucked up in the short term. To not accept and understand this fact that, an uninformed public taken together with a political dialouge skewed against our interests, forces us to take baby steps would be suicidal to the progressive movement.

Again, I am as liberal as they come. But we need pragmatism, and that is how people like Webb and Obama will lead us to a future where the kuchinich liberals will be accepted by the mainstream as mainstream, and this neoconservative bullshit will be a laughed off relic of the past.

Put your shit shields up Cap'n. Incoming from the self righteous ones.

That you speak truth has no bearing - you must be ideologically pure or suffer the consequences.

double snark

doggiebobo @ 47:

cg the 2nd @ 34:

Webb can understand complex legislation, but not the arguments coming from the blogosphere.

Isn't the following the point everybody is trying to make?
- the new bill offers retroactive immunity for telecom companies, and gives the president sweeping authority to determine who is participating in a "risky" phone conversation. He therefore no longer needs a warrant to listen in on you. As such, we do not give a crap about whatever "complexities" may exist in the bill.

Not for certain, but I believe you have overstated the provisions of the "new" FISA
law. He(referring to the prez, as you did) cannot on a whim listen in on you or my
telephone conversations. As I understand the law, there must be some clear, known
information that the party being monitored is involved in communcations with a known or suspected terrorist, and that such conversations are with that person(or persons)
outside the US of A. And even if that is the case, the Gov. must go to the FISA
court(even tho after the fact), and obtain a warrant for such evesdropping. Some
one help or correct me if I am wrong or have misinterpreted the law.

While I am not happy with any changes to the "old" FISA law, the changes to this law, while discomforting, are not the total end of the world. Do it represent another slide down the slippery slope? Yes, it does. However, the beautiful thing about our government and our laws are that both can be changed. There were political tradeoffs here, and they were done because we are in the middle of an election year, with alot at stake, and an opponent that will demagogue at every turn. If the Dems win big...which I STILL believe they will...this legislation can be changed faster than you can say "chimperor".

Let's be honest. The REAL issue that has the our knickers in a knot is the retroactive immunity, which ulitmately protects a president and administration that we all abhor!

Don't lose sight of the big prize. We have to stay TOGETHER. We have to support OUR candidates. We have to make it crystal clear to them what our expectations are if they win. We cannot let our opponents, who will stoop to nothing, who know no limits in how far they will sink, to drive wedges between us.

.

R E M E M B E R:

THEY(sic) HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOMS...
...And so THEY(sic) have attempted to legislate away our FREEDOMS... A G A I N!

Name me ONE terrorist that hates us more for our FREEDOMS...
Name me one terrorist that has attempted to take away our FREEDOMS...

... and I'll show you a body of Congress willing, waiting, abetting these terrorists.

.

Move on people, nothing to see here. @ 56:

I suspect that most bloggers really don't do quite the research they should. I always take them with a grain of salt, as I do the "major" or "mainstream" media. Most blogs are imply opinion (present company accepted) Only a limited amount do actual research.

this isn't an issue that requires "a lot of research".

calling for research is Bush' catchphrase for burying the truth....it doesn't take a lot of research to find this out either.

so let's all do our homework while justice gets steamrolled once again.

doggiebobo @ 58:

Liberal AND Proud @ 55:

doggiebobo @ 47:

cg the 2nd @ 34:
Not for certain, but I believe you have overstated the provisions of the "new" FISA
law. He(referring to the prez, as you did) cannot on a whim listen in on you or my
telephone conversations. As I understand the law, there must be some clear, known
information that the party being monitored is involved in communcations with a known or suspected terrorist, and that such conversations are with that person(or persons)
outside the US of A. And even if that is the case, the Gov. must go to the FISA
court(even tho after the fact), and obtain a warrant for such evesdropping. Some
one help or correct me if I am wrong or have misinterpreted the law.

While I am not happy with any changes to the "old" FISA law, the changes to this law, while discomforting, are not the total end of the world. Do it represent another slide down the slippery slope? Yes, it does. However, the beautiful thing about our government and our laws are that both can be changed. There were political tradeoffs here, and they were done because we are in the middle of an election year, with alot at stake, and an opponent that will demagogue at every turn. If the Dems win big...which I STILL believe they will...this legislation can be changed faster than you can say "chimperor".

Let's be honest. The REAL issue that has the our knickers in a knot is the retroactive immunity, which ulitmately protects a president and administration that we all abhor!

Don't lose sight of the big prize. We have to stay TOGETHER. We have to support OUR candidates. We have to make it crystal clear to them what our expectations are if they win. We cannot let our opponents, who will stoop to nothing, who know no limits in how far they will sink, to drive wedges between us.

We are in total and complete agreement...It is the "immunity" provision of the new
FISA law that sucks and needs to be changed ASAP.
But, as to a "quick fix" to that horrible provision, I have some doubts even when Obama
is elected and takes office in Jan. 09. That is, as I recall, the new FISA law has a
"SunSet" provision whereby in 4 1/2 years(or not before June of 2012), Congress can
only then take a new look at the law and then make the required and necessary
changes. I hope I am wrong and that something can be done as to the immunity
provision sooner, but that is not my understanding of FISA as recently enacted.

Laws are written by men. When the political winds shift, "sunset provisions" suddenly drift off into the sunset.

That's why God invented erasers.

c_ray_86: Again, I am as liberal as they come. But we need pragmatism, and that is how people like Webb and Obama will lead us to a future where the kuchinich liberals will be accepted by the mainstream as mainstream, and this neoconservative bullshit will be a laughed off relic of the past.
===========

Obama has constantly taken the far-right constitution destroying positions. Kucinich has not.

Obama will NOT lead us into the future like he promised. He will not uphold the constitution as he promised. He will be no different than Bush and it downright sickens me.

Webb, who also used to be a favorite of mine, is not planning on upholding the constitution either.

I want a president who will stand up and pull us out of Iraq. Obama has consistently gave the yes to EVERY iraq bill that's come before him. That's not leading. I want a president who won't grant immunity to telecomms. I want a president who won't legislate the destruction of the 4th admendment.

I go by votes. Votes on the bills are what counts. And Obama has yet to deliver on a single promise... and he's not even in the white house yet!

Another blow hard military creep! He needs to join the refucklican party.
I hope the dems can run a progressive against him. He is way out of touch!

Incidentally if you'd like to know why Jimmy boy is going this way:

Jim Webb - 2008 PAC Contributions

Telephone Utilities:
AT&T Inc: $2,500
Nortel Networks: $2,666
Sprint/Nexttel: $1,000
Total for 2008: $6166

Apparently it only costs $6,166 to buy a Democrat. Republicans are in general, way more expensive.

feck jum wibb

F**K Jim Webb and F**k the stupid looking wig under which he walked in. The people finally get a tool (the non-dumptruck internets) that they can use to find the ACTUAL news of the day and discuss it. Then our patrician class freaks out at the very netroots that put many of them in office. After Allen's "macaca moment" I felt compelled to send a contribution to this asshat. I'm sorry about that. And as time goes by in this election season I am getting to the point where I'll show up at the poll only to vote against Republicans. I do not expect that I will get much in return.

Suz in KS @ 17:

There really is some legitimate criticism to what Webb said. Lets face, even bloggers who do this full time don't have access to the same information as Senators and Congresspersons. And may don't do this full time but blog anyway. We'd like to think that its all about common sense, limited research (that's publically available) and reasoning but none of us has the clearance to see the documents these folks see. And we aren't privy to the dealings that go on behind the scenes. Maybe there is a deal to broker this again when the new administration come on board. We just don't know. And lets face another thing, how bad did it make McCain look that he didn't even bother to show up. My brother, a dittohead, was even floored by that one and his support of McSame is shaken.

I'm not thrilled about the FISA bill but I'm also not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are the people who are supposed to represent us but they have facts we don't. For the most part, I can let my displeasure be known but I'm ALWAYS going to support the Democrat.

Give me a break. The self-proclaimed liberal bloggers understand the Bill of Rights? Yeah, right. Even after the recent Supreme Court decision they still can't correctly describe the Second Amendment.

The FISA bill boils down to two things: 1) judicial oversight was put back into the process, and 2) telecoms would receive civil, but not criminal, immunity. Liberal bloggers dogmatically wanted telecom pay back. It'll have to wait. Get over it. (If the liberal wing-nuts sabotage Obama, as they did Gore and Kerry - through their tepid support - they will usher in Bush'es third term. (The New Yorkers' off to a fine start.) Democrats are not a disfunctional family - they are just disfunctional.)

What he meant is that he has very strong feelings about "privacy rights" in much the same way as I have strong feelings about murder or child abuse.

Webb's right. The blogosphere doesn't understand it.

I still keep thinking that the retroactive immunity has to do with protecting the "alleged" spying that John Bolton was engaged in at the NSA You know just regular stuff spying on Colin Powell and UN officials just the regular run of the mill wiretapping.

Just can not get the image of Senator's Biden, Kerry, Boxer, Dodd, Lincoln Chaffee out of my mind. During John Boltons nomination hearings when they asked for the NSA intercepts that 'allegedly" have to do with this spying I thought this group of Senators were going to jump over their tables and release some whoop ass. I really thought they were going to knock out John Bolton's lights out as he smirked when they demanded those intercepts for the who knows how many times.

Sidney Blumenthals article "The Good Generals Revenge" is about this "alleged' spying. It is worth the read
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/28/usa.comment
"The Bolton confirmation hearings have revealed his constant efforts to undermine Powell on Iran and Iraq, Syria and North Korea. They have also exposed a most curious incident that has triggered the administration's stonewall reflex. The foreign relations committee has discovered that Bolton made a highly unusual request and gained access to 10 intercepts by the National Security Agency, which monitors worldwide communications, of conversations involving past and present government officials. Whose conversations did Bolton secretly secure and why?

Staff members on the committee believe that Bolton was probably spying on Powell, his senior advisers and other officials reporting to him on diplomatic initiatives that Bolton opposed. If so, it is also possible that Bolton was sharing this top-secret information with his neoconservative allies within the Pentagon and the vice-president's office, with whom he was in daily contact and who were known to be working in league against Powell.

If the intercepts are released they may disclose whether Bolton was a key figure in a counter-intelligence operation run inside the Bush administration against the secretary of state, who would resemble the hunted character played by Will Smith in Enemy of the State. Both Republican and Democratic senators have demanded that the state department, which holds the NSA intercepts, turn them over to the committee. But Rice so far has refused. What is she hiding by her cover-up?"

The issues behind FISA are not new ones. They weren't suddenly plopped into our laps after 9/11.

9/11 was the excuse. Concerns about privacy and surveillance have been around since the Olmstead decision (which, in his dissenting opinion, Justice Louis Brandeis affirmed that we must strive to protect individual privacy). Both Democratic and Republican administrations have conducted wiretapping of questionable targets.

But searches of library records? Tried it before. It got shoe-horned into USA PATRIOT.
Packet-sniffing searches through Carnivore? Public outcry, likely to be outlawed by Congress. It got shoe-horned into USA PATRIOT.
And so on.

The people who seek to destroy our freedoms knew full well, section and paragraph, what they needed to overturn or eliminate. And now we've given them 'more than they asked for.' Just spiffy.

Sorry, Senator Webb - it won't be the liberal blogger that damages the progressive brand, it'll be people like you, who get co-opted into the whole 'national security/classified' okie-doke. Once you're compromised, you're theirs.

Good security is not cloaked in secrecy. A homeowner doesn't hide the fact that they have an alarm system, or a lock on their front door, or a Rottweiler named Jesus camping out in the living room. It's about making it clear to the enemy (a burglar) that the risk of getting caught or turning into a scooby-snack far outweighs making off with my widescreen TV.

And you can see that good security is defense in depth. Having a light on the front porch makes it hard for someone to hide; a deadbolt and door lock must be picked or broken down; an alarm system adds another layer, and if it's a monitored system, the clock is already ticking.

So please, Senator, don't trot out the 'if you knew what I knew, you'd understand' card - because that's an open admission that we've screwed up, that we have no defense, no security, thanks to the mind-bogglingly idiotic policies of the Bush Administration. And that doesn't mean that giving them their ideal world is going to make it work, either.

It sounds like Jim Webb wants us to trust him without giving us any reasons why we should. I'll give Jim Webb a reason why we shouldn't trust him or Congress just yet. Impeachment was taken off the table AND the 110th have not kept any of their promises. A true liberal/progressive does not blindly follow anyone.

I contributed to Jim Webb's campaign. Wish I had my money back now. I thought he would be a tiger at standing up to the neo-cons and what did we get? A pussy with his tail between his legs. How could there be any gray areas when it comes to upholding the Constitution and our rights as citizens? You wimps who think he has a point when he tells us it's so complicated we wouldn't understand, may form a line to kiss my rosy rump. How many reading this have college degrees? Many! My answer to Jim Webb if you have facts we don't then tell us. Explain it to us. We can handle it. There is no gray line between right and wrong and the FISA bill was dead wrong! Any Democrat who voted for it should be scourged heavily by the net root blogs. We made Webb and we can take him down. He knows it, too, and is worried. Good! He should be. He may become a one term wonder.

It's complicated. Just like Denise Richards.

I could explain it to you, but since you are not an important Senator, I doubt you would understand. So I will dismiss you summarily. Begone.

Hmm... again with the misleading titles... C&L is becoming more and more like the media they rip on...

"Jim Webb is a Very Serious Person. You, little blogger, not so much."

How in the world could a normal secure person take what Jim Webb said as an assault on all blogger's seriousness? It screams insecurity and pettiness. What did Webb say? He said issues are usually much more complex than people want to believe. He said a lot of blogs discuss issues in very intelligent ways but sometimes some blogs jump all over something without looking at all aspects of it.

Why are you so upset with this stance? It seems perfectly reasoned... And why is it that when someone mentions bloggers, it's taken as a personal affront? That would be like me getting mad every time someone said something like: "Some people really piss me off"... Well, I'm a person, so should I be offended?

Waaayy overblown... And the title!!??!! ugh... unless there's something I'm missing or you didn't quote the appropriate part, there is nothing anywhere in that transcript that would lead me to believe Webb was being condescending.

MikeD @ 9:

I can't believe I'm going to speak up in defense of someone who voted for the FISA bill but here goes. I think this article was a bit unfair to Webb. It makes it sound like Webb was talking down to the net community when I don't think he was. All he said was that its a complicated issue and that it often gets over simplified in the way its talked about on blogs. I hate to say it but I agree with him. The issue is a complicated one. The NSA has AI software that can process bulk emails and calls and look for particular patterns that might indicate a message that could be part of a terrorist cell. Its impossible, or at least I don't see how perhaps I'm wrong I'm no lawyer, to get a warrant to do that kind of processing. One answer, which I think most people here would advocate, is that you just don't do that kind of bulk processing period. However, I can see that a case could be made for doing that kind of processing with the appropriate safe guards. I don't know enough about the current FISA bill to say for sure, but I'm pretty certain given the past that such safe guards are not in the bill. I'm also sure that there is no justification for giving Telecom companies immunity before we even know what they did. I'm against the bill but what I'm trying to say is that what Webb said was reasonable and not condescending.

We don't know what they know?

ALL you have to know to tell if this bill was valid is a copy of the Constitution and a copy of the bill.

Webb et. al. want us to think that these "other" things they know are inside information on terrorist threats (as if that matters) but what these other "things" are are probably pictures of them with either a live boy or a dead girl. Whyduhyathink Nancy has put "impeachment off the table" - cause her and the rest of the top Dems are complicit in Bush's war crimes, and the evidence of that can NEVER be allowed to get out.

From an article entitled,"Terrorphobia-Our False Sense of Insecurity" by John Mueller in "The American Interest" Vol.III, No.5 | May/June 2008 -
..."the total number of people killed worldwide by genuine al-Qaeda types and assorted wannabes outside of war zones since 9/11 averages about 300 per year. That certainly is 300 a year too many, but that number is smaller than the yearly number of bathtub drownings in the United States. Moreover, unless the terrorists are able somehow massively to increase their capacities, the likelihood that a person living outside a war zone will perish at the hands of an international terrorist over an eighty-year period is about one in 80,000. By comparison, an American's chance of dying in a auto accident over the same time interval is one in eighty".

Scrap FISA, HONOR the Constitution and if Mr. Webb is worried about our SECURITY, he can pass a law requiring that we must wear life-preservers when using the bathtub!

independent @ 94:

Pragmatically speaking, I don't give a fuck whether it's Democrats or Republicans raping the Fourth Amendment, so I might as well vote in some right-wingers again so they can fuck things up to the point where even servile terror-pussies like Webb are emboldened to honor their fucking oath of fucking office.

So because some democrats do one thing that you don't like you are willing to turn the country over to another Neocon administration that will create more war and completely trash what is left of the constitution? What about the people of Iran who will be bombed by the US, potentially with nuclear weapons? What about the women of this country? Whoever is the next president will without a doubt get to appoint at least one and most likely two or more supreme court justices to replace the most liberal ones still on the court. McCain will almost certainly mean we can say good buy to a women's right to safe abortions. It amazes me how easily some people are willing to give up on democracy just because they lose a particular battle. Of course that is exactly what McCain, Bush, and the rest want you to do.

Exactly. This forced-choice shit is not acceptable. There are certain minimum standards that any office-holder must uphold. One is defending and protecting the Constitution. Absent that, I do not give a flying fuck who rules.

Indie @ 75:

Give me a break. The self-proclaimed liberal bloggers understand the Bill of Rights? Yeah, right. Even after the recent Supreme Court decision they still can't correctly describe the Second Amendment.

The FISA bill boils down to two things: 1) judicial oversight was put back into the process, and 2) telecoms would receive civil, but not criminal, immunity. Liberal bloggers dogmatically wanted telecom pay back. It'll have to wait. Get over it. (If the liberal wing-nuts sabotage Obama, as they did Gore and Kerry - through their tepid support - they will usher in Bush'es third term.

ITA. As much as I want paybacks for what the Bushies have done to my country over the last 8 years, I'd rather have a Democrat in power who understands the contitution is a living document and that we need to try to reassemble as much as we can with the Bush administration finally gone. We CAN NOT do that with a limp weed like McCain in office. Its foolish folks to throw out the "pretty good" match to your values just because he isn't and EXACT match! I'll take the pretty good match ANYDAY! We've been through the my way or the highway attitude of the Bush years - is that REALLY the future you want?

Anyone who invokes their black clearances is by definition full of shit. In this administration you could have TS/SCI and be utterly out of it because Dick Cheney is running rings around you proliferating SAPs. Webb is a dimbulb out of his depth.

I've read several comments about the need to embrace "pragmatism". I can't agree with that, because those on Capital Hill who label what they are doing as "pragmatism" are invariably betraying enduring principles in order to pursue fleeting expedients. Then, they excuse themselves by calling themselves "pragmatists". The problem is that, in politics as in any other arena of life, it is impossible to sacrifice principle in favor of expedient without simultaneously taking on the consequences that abdication or betrayal of enduring principle makes inevitable. In this case, bedrock principles of justice, liberty and even human rights have been abandoned in order to pursue an expedient of so-called security. Even if one takes the giant leap and buys into the premise that external threats to our "security" are genuine, accepting the expedient of the new and improved FISA as a substitute for the priciples enshrined in the Constitution is a losing proposition. No external threat has the power to destroy this nation. That destruction is an act only we can commit against ourselves, and shredding or weakening the Constitution is the only effective way of going about that business.

The Constitution, with the principles and principled processes it enshrines and codifies, is the standard, against which all other matters of state and law must be measured. It is self-sufficient, serving as it's own justification. It is the center against which all else is labeled left or right. A true centrist politician is neither left nor right, but rather a true champion and defender of the Constitution. There's damn few of those champoins in elective office, and, unfortunately, they have been labled as crackpots.

Webb has missed the point.

c_ray_86 @ 2:

Hitting on the note Webb was trying to make (this is NOT issue specific, I did not support the FISA bill)

You do not want liberal bloggers to fall into the same dogmatic styling as those opposite of them. We do not represent the majority of America's opinion sometimes (simply because we are better informed is not an excuse). There are constant compromises that must be struck in a pragmatic world. If everyone in the party voted like Kuchinich then we would not have power in washington again.

The changing of public opinion is a slow and gradual process, one liberals have lost for a long time and are just starting to reclaim. The return to a more progressive America takes time, no matter how badly neocons may have fucked up in the short term. To not accept and understand this fact that, an uninformed public taken together with a political dialouge skewed against our interests, forces us to take baby steps would be suicidal to the progressive movement.

Again, I am as liberal as they come. But we need pragmatism, and that is how people like Webb and Obama will lead us to a future where the kuchinich liberals will be accepted by the mainstream as mainstream, and this neoconservative bullshit will be a laughed off relic of the past.

web is a republican bush is a republican mccain is a republican and barack obummer is a repig, and anyone who votes to change one murder bush for another murder obamas lost thier minds , thier all in it with the oil companys every stinking one of them , they can stick thier votes up thier ass along with thier gas!

And of course when Obama voted for the new FISA bill, bloggers don't complain as much, but God forbid Webb makes such comments.

They Thought They Were Free

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

Gerald Gibson @ 49:

The Constitution is a series of RED LINES for the federal government put in place specifically to chain down the federal government... the Constitution is NOT an over simplification. The founding fathers had heard all these same excuses already for many years when they drew up the Constitution. They wrote about WHY they drew these red lines (Federalist Papers) and they spoke about them in personal correspondence.

What is so hard to understand about this?

Nothing. It was written at a 10th grade level. It's only when a bunch of maggot lawyers (most politicians are lawyers) are given a couple of hundred years of parsing all of its original meaning out of existence that it becomes "complicated."

The sad thing is that the old FISA court (a secret, unnacountable star-chamber rubber-stamping court) that we are begging to have back is itself unconstitutional.

For that matter, after "war on liquor", "war on organized crime", "war on communism", "war on some drugs", and now "war on terror" (by far the most moronic phrase ever uttered by a politician), there is little that is constitutional about our government.

And the system is self-protecting at this point. Its political arteries are so clogged that even the most well-meaning revolutionary couldn't work within the system at this point to change it. It has to be ripped out by its roots with all of the corrupt little piglets suckling at its teats shrieking and squealing every step of the way.

I guess we should just be thankful that they haven't started quartering troops in our houses yet.

What are these "black clearances" of which he speaks?

Steve E @ 104:

How did Sheldon Whitehouse vote on Fisa or did he bother?

He voted for it, along with Obama and Webb.

Webb:

It’s not an issue that is easy to boil down in the way a lot of the blogging community has boiled it down.

Translation:

The bloggers would never understand if we told them we are terrified of what a lame duck president can do to us, and Bush has convinced us that a terrorist attack is imminent, this time for really real, and that we would be blamed by voters and kicked out for not passing a bill which has National Security symbolically written all over it. We fell for it before, so we have the right to do it again, dammit!

Oh yeah, and we're too lazy to change the frame on this or challenge media misconceptions, so we'll just pass whatever the hell the leader of the Strong-On-Security party wants. You can understand if we kind of ignore the constitution, right? For my job? No, of course you can't. It must be because you are not as sophisticated as we are.

So now that he's stabbed us in the back he proceeds to twist the knife.

Is anyone feeling betrayed yet by the Republicans Light? I mean the Republicrats... I mean the Demoblicans...

Oh crap, I give up. I can't tell them apart anymore...

i understand fisa just fine sen. webb.
warrentless wiretapping is bad, mmmkay?
letting people or corporations off the hook that illegally wiretap americans without warrants mandated by fisa is bad mmmkay?
gutting the fisa statute to give the government even more ability to wiretap without warrants when they've heretofore proven they have no regard for the 4th amendment is bad mmmkay?:

Like Senator Obama, Senator Webb made a grave mistake, voting against the fourth amendment

He needs to go back and check to see why he was voted on to got to the Senate in the first place.

His only responsibility is to protect and defend our constitution, just as he was obligated to do, while in the service.

There is no difference Senator Webb.

bmw 528 @ 120:

Paul @ 105:

I've read several comments ...snip...Webb has missed the point.

Good point. More often than not, Webb and others confuse pragmatism with the ease and convenience of political compromise instead of the risky course of taking a principled stand. Personally, I am tired of our risk adverse government.

Me, too. I'm also tired of the mealy-mouthed rationalizations they offer up to excuse their corruption, moral cowardice, betrayals of trust and so-on. A plague on them and their houses.

Oh and guys, THEY ARE NOT BEING BLACK MAILED. This is their will, they have been helping Bush since the war began, they are not stupid...THEY ARE IN ON IT. They are trying to cover their butts and nothing more.