Olbermann-FISA, Telecom Immunity and other Crimes

Keith Olbermann: Special Comment By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
Thursday 31 January 2008
Transcript
And finally, as promised, a Special Comment - of FISA and the telecoms. In a presidency of hypocrisy - an administration of exploitation - a labyrinth of leadership - in which every vital fact is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma hidden under a claim of executive privilege supervised by an idiot - this one... is surprisingly easy. President Bush has put protecting the telecom giants from the laws... ahead of protecting you from the terrorists. He has demanded an extension of the FISA law - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - but only an extension that includes retroactive immunity for the telecoms who helped him spy on you. Congress has given him, and he has today signed a fifteen-day extension which simply kicks the time bomb down the field, and has changed nothing of his insipid rhetoric, in which he portrays the Democrats as 'soft on terror' and getting in the way of his superhuman efforts to protect the nation... when, in fact, and with bitter irony, if anybody is 'soft on terror' here... it is Mr. Bush. In the State of the Union Address, sir, you told Congress, "if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger." Yet you are willing to weaken that ability! You will subject us, your citizens, to that greater danger. This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough even for you to understand: If Congress approves a new FISA act without telecom immunity and sends it to your desk and you veto it - you, by your own terms and your own definitions, you will have just sided with the terrorists. Ya gotta have this law, or we're all gonna die. But you might veto this law! It's bad enough, sir, that you are demanding an ex post facto law which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive, and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans, under the flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail. But when you then demanded again, during the State of the Union address, that Congress retroactively clear the Verizons and the AT&T's, you wouldn't even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared! "The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America." Believed? Don't you know? Does the endless hair-splitting of your presidential fine print, extend even here? If you, sir, are asking Congress, and us, to join you in this shameless, breathless, literal, textbook example of fascism - the merged efforts of government and corporations who answer to no government - you still don't have the guts to even say the telecom companies did assist you, in your efforts? Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon never go on the record about anything? Even the stuff you claim to believe in? Silly me. Of course Mr. Bush is going to say "believed." Yes, it sounds dumber than if he had referred to himself as "the alleged president," or had said today was "reportedly Thursday," or had claimed "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. But the moment he says anything else, any doubt that the telecoms knowingly broke the law, is out the window, and with it, any chance that even the Republicans who are fighting this like they were trying to fend off terrorists using nothing but broken beer bottles and swear words couldn't consent to retroactively immunize corporate criminals.
Which is why the Vice President probably shouldn't have phoned in to the Rush Limbaugh Propaganda-Festival yesterday. Sixth sentence out of Mr. Cheney's mouth: The FISA bill is about, quote, "retroactive liability protection for the companies that have worked with us and helped us prevent further attacks against the United States." Oops. Mr. Cheney is something of a loose cannon, of course. But he kind of let the wrong cat out of the bag there. Because Mr. Bush - and the corporations he values more than people - didn't want anybody to verify what Mark Klein says. Mark Klein is the AT&T whistleblower who appeared on this newscast last November, who explained, in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood I-T desk, how he personally attached all of AT&T's circuits - everything carrying every phone call, every e-mail, every bit of web browsing - into a secure room... ...Room Number 641-A, at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco - where it was all copied so the government could look at it.
For the continuation go to thr original at:
http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/31/626420.aspx

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Olbermann
• Bush
• Cheney
• MarkKlein
• McConnel
• AT&T
• Verizon
• Mukasey

[wawbwc]

I want to close down the Federal Reserve.--- Ron Paul

[gbCerberus37]

Excellent

[mannhorn34]

I heard that the same people that listened to our phone conversations , used some of this info passed on to buddy's in the financial district. China was aware of this and had concerns that we would manipulate or inside trade ourselves to ruins and look what happened.

[theprinceofpain]

"Reportedly thursday..."

LOL

[triton609]

This fag wears panties and hose also. I have never seen any one person more gay and democrat than this dolt.

[d3p3ch3mod3]

The source of the argument bears no revelance on the legitimacy of the argument.

[d3p3ch3mod3]

We have voting power?

[Mr2718281828459045]

You can have my PGP key... when you pry it from my cold dead fingers :P

Just encrypt, and you're good to go.

[mike1111qq]

why dont olbyhack EVER say just who of the 40 and there lawyers want to sue the telecomes for MILLIONS??? 40 out of 300 million people... why so much MONEY??? and does SOROS and the old hippies of EFF along with the lawyers frow the ACLU have their fingers in the pie??? olbyHACK allways has so many facts and details when it fits his propaganda.. WHY NOT NOW??? and WHY SO MUCH MONEY??? and you will get to pay it in your phone bill!!!

[bigpyoopypants]

Impressive. I hope bush watched that in full.

[kinjii]

OUCH...