Damage Done to Constitution -- What Now?

Let's try to see this situation in the best light since it's done for now--like Glenn Greenwald said recently, this is "hardly the end of anything, but the beginning. Sen. Chris Dodd -- whose stalwart, relentless efforts to stop this law were nothing short of heroic, as those efforts often provoked substantial hostility among many of his colleagues -- sent around the following email today to his mailing list highlighting the positive aspects of the battle

(THIS IS FROM SEN. DODD):

Yesterday was a sad day for the United States Senate.

It is my hope that the courts will undo the damage done to the Constitution.

But let us stand tall, knowing that by working together we were able to make wiretapping and retroactive immunity part of the national discourse these last number of months.

We came together – all of you, Senator Feingold, bloggers like Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, organizations like the EFF and ACLU, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans who simply wanted to make sure that this one, last insult did not happen with ease.

I'm sorry we weren't successful.

I just hope I'm lucky enough to have you by my side in the next fight, whatever that may be.

Thanks for all you've done.

Chris Dodd (end)

Greenwald continuing with some POSITIVES...

By all rights, given the standard array of bipartisan lobbyists, the establishment pundit class, the intelligence community, the White House and Congressional leaders all lined up behind it, this bill should have passed quietly and seamlessly back last December. That's normally how the Washington Establishment functions.

It really was a TRUE SPONTANEOUS OUTBURST OF CITIZEN ACTIVISM that prevented that from happening. As a result, NEW COALITIONS formed. There will now be LAWSUITS CHALLENGING THE CONSTITUTIONALITY of this travesty of a law. The activism that arose over this bill did indeed -- as Sen. Dodd said -- force these issues into the PUBLIC DISCOURSE, and will serve as a foundation, a launching pad, for far more potent and effective efforts against future assaults of this type from the political class on the rule of law and core Constitutional protections. (NOTE) It's important that the pervasive, justifiable anger over what happened yesterday be channeled not into defeatism, but into CONSTRUCTIVE RESOLVE to create still more effective methods for battling against these erosions.

UPDATE: The most overlooked fact in the entire FISA debate -- the aspect of it that renders incoherent the case in favor of the new FISA law or even those who dismiss its significance -- is that (NOTE) virtually NOBODY KNOWS what the spying program they're immunizing entailed and towards what ends it was used -- i.e., whether it was abused for improper purposes. Even those who acknowledge that the warrant-less spying program was illegal like to assert that it was implemented for benign and proper counter-terrorism purposes...but they have absolutely no idea whether that is true. None. Zero. To assert that is simply to make assertions with no basis whatsoever.

There has been NO Congressional investigation into the NSA program -- meaning an effort to compel the Bush administration to turn over to Congress information about who was subjected to the illegal, warrant-less spying and towards what purposes. Back in March, 2006, even the Senate Intelligence Committee -- the core function of which is "to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States" -- voted along party lines AGAINST conducting hearings into the NSA spying program.

The whole point of the Bush NSA warrantless spying program was to enable the administration to spy on people in secret -- i.e., WITHOUT the JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT the law required. Thus, the only people outside the Executive Branch who have any real knowledge at all of how these illegal spying powers were exercised are a small number of Senators on the Intelligence Committee who have been briefed by Bush officials, but they are barred by law from saying what they know. (MY NOTE: DID YOU GET THAT? THE ONLY PEOPLE OUTSIDE ADMINISTRATION WHO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON AT ALL ARE BARRED FROM SPEAKING--HAVE THEIR LIPS TAPED SHUT) Nonetheless, here is what one of those members -- Sen. Russ Feingold -- said during his remarks on the Senate floor regarding the new FISA bill, as highlighted by Howie Klein. In a minimally rational world, these revelations from Sen. Feingold would be major, major news:

I sit on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrant-less wiretapping program. And, based on what I know, I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen either due to the Inspector General report, the election of a new President, or simply the passage of time, members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation. I am also familiar with the collection activities that have been conducted under the Protect America Act and will continue under this bill. I invite any of my colleagues who wish to know more about those activities to come speak to me in a classified setting. Publicly, all I can say is that I have serious concerns about how those activities may have impacted the civil liberties of Americans. If we grant these new powers to the government and the effects become known to the American people, we will realize what a mistake it was, of that I am sure.

Go to the following for more updates & conversation on this nation-shaking issue:

bordc.org/news

salon.com Glenn Greenwald (see that he now has like 480 Comments on this subject!)

The Nation's most recent actions toward a suit in combo with ACLU

And of course, you may want to go to the Congressional websites of those who have done the most in Congress to help raise awareness such as Feingold, Leahy, Dodd, Wexler, Kucinich, McGovern and a few others...who, what, where do YOU recommend we go for more helpful information? let me know by signing up to comment below...
and/or send your comment, suggestion: newlease7@yahoo.com

(Some of Greenwald & Feingold's words were put into Caps by me...the items with NOTE and paragraph are the blogger's--Connie)