C-span is about to do a segment on FISA. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is the scheduled guest. We can expect him to be a stone-faced apologist for this bill, but we can expect a bit of morbid entertainment as he is confronted by callers livid with his complicity in what can only be termed crimes against the constitution. They will be telling him what he is right to his face, and he's going to have to smile and take it as America looks on.
The way the segment was promoted at the top of the show was as a contentious issue, with those who value civil liberties on one side and those who value security on the other.
If there is anybody out there who happens to get a call in to the show, be sure to call them out on that fallacy. If the issue were to be simplified to two positions then it would look something like this: Those who believe in the rule of law vs. those who believe in an all powerful executive.
I would like to hear Mr. Hatch explain exactly how the constitution is both the supreme law of the land, and simultaneously something which the president can disregard at his leisure.
The president has made it explicitly clear that any FISA bill that does not include immunity for telecoms will be vetoed. Even the Bingaman amendment which would simply delay immunity until the rest of the Senate could be briefed on the extent of surveillance that's taken place over the last seven years would by vetoed. The full Senate doesn't even know what it's about to grant immunity for!
Telecoms knew the presidential request for surveillance data was not legal. The likes of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth all have armies of corporate lawyers that are aware of the fourth amendment and its requirement that warrants must be issued before privacy can be violated.
The new bill is no more likely to be respected than the old FISA bill. Both included language that made them the "exclusive" means by which surveillance is to be conducted. What then is to keep the president from breaking this law just like he broke the last law?
The court of review that is supposed to determine the validity of the lawsuits currently in the courts is only designed to examine whether the president issued a formal request for the telecoms to turn over records. If the court finds that he did make a formal request (something we already know that he did), then they are required to dismiss the suits regardless of whether he broke the law by not going through the FISA court and getting warrants.
UPDATE: Watch it live