More on Bingaman and FISA

I posted about Sen. Jeff Bingaman's vote for cloture on the FISA bill yesterday, and received a response from the Senator's staff providing an explanation of the vote. According to State Director Terry Brunner, Sen. Bingaman "believes it is reasonable to debate the bill to allow it to be altered." In that vein, Sen. Bingaman has drafted an amendment to the bill -- designed to fix problems with the telecom immunity provisions -- that's currently being circulated in the Senate to garner co-sponsors.

A number of watchdog groups have signed onto a letter (doc) describing Bingaman's amendment and urging Senators to support it, including the ACLU, People for the American Way, Constitution Project, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The amendment "would delay the effective date of the immunity provisions in Title II of the FISA Amendments Act, H.R. 6304, until ninety days after an Inspectors’ General report on the President’s warrantless surveillance program and related surveillance activities is submitted to Congress."

In other words, Congress would have 90 days to decide, based on the results of an audit of the actions of the telecoms by the Inspectors' General, whether they should be granted retroactive immunity from lawsuits filed in response to the telecoms' cooperation with the federal government. If the audit revealed conduct that Congress felt should not be immunized, it would have time to act to "adjust the immunity provisions."

As it stands, the FISA bill grants retroactive immunity to telecoms before the Inspectors' General audit is complete, "before Congress knows what conduct it is immunizing."

Brunner also provided a reminder that Sen. Bingaman voted against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, voted against the early ’08 Senate FISA bill and has "spoken out against it every time it has come before the Senate."

FISA Vote Delayed to July 8
Senators Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd worked with the Senate leadership to delay the Senate floor debate and vote on the FISA bill until the Senators return to DC on July 8th, after the Independence Day recess. Feingold and Dodd have said they'll introduce an amendment to strip the FISA legislation of telecom immunity in its entirety. A Feingold email says:

I hope that over the July 4th holiday, Senators will take a closer look at this deeply flawed legislation and understand how it threatens the civil liberties of the American people.

"It is possible to defend this country from terrorists while also protecting the rights and freedoms that define our nation."

It's been confirmed that Bingaman's amendment will be one of only three to be considered when the FISA bill comes up, including the the one from Feingold/Dodd and another I haven't heard about yet.

Activists are being urged to contact their Senators and/or talk to them at events where they appear during the holiday recess. One suggestion is that they be urged to actually read the bill.

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