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H.R. 6304 -- FISA Amendments Act of 2008 |
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H.R.6304
Roll Call # 437
Title: To amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of
1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of
foreign intelligence, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Reyes, Silvestre [TX-16]
(introduced 6/19/2008)
Cosponsors (2)
Related Bills:
H.RES.1285
Latest Major Action: 6/23/2008
Senate floor actions. Status: Cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the measure presented in Senate.
Nancy Pelosi voted YEA on this bill. California Democrats who voted NAY were: Xavier Becerra, Lois Capps, Susan Davis, Anna Eshoo, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Mike Honda, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Doris Matsui, George Miller, Grace Napolitano, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Jackie Speier, Hilda Solis, Mike Thompson, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Henry Waxman, and Lynn Woolsey. Pete Stark did not vote, and the other California Democrats -- including Jane Harman, Jerry McNerny, and Ellen Tauscher, voted YEA along with Nancy Pelosi. The bill passed 293 to 129, with one Republican joining 128 opposing Democrats.
Passage of this bill has stirred up controversy, with many, including Senator Russ Feingold, accusing the Democrats of having caved to the Bush administration. The bill seeks to expand the power of law enforcement to spy by permitting the surveillance of communications in which one party is out of the country. As Sen. Feingold put it on Democracy Now!, you might be calling your daughter who is doing her junior year abroad or your family that is still in Iraq.
The bill also seeks to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that have already participated in warrantless wiretapping.
Feingold has suggested, on Democracy Now!, that if the bill becomes a law, members of the Bush administration -- including Bush himself -- might be immune to charges of impeachment and/or future criminal charges.
Here is the Thomas link:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.06304:
Here is a link to commentary by Glenn Greenwald, of Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/#postid-updateD1
And an excerpt from Greenwald:
"Still, there are numerous, glaring flaws with the fantasy that Obama
will criminally prosecute telecoms, which I've already described in
detail and will only summarize here. That the FISA bill only immunizes
telecoms from civil but not criminal liability isn't some mystical
discovery generated by John Dean's Talmudic examination of the fine
print, but rather, is something that was crystal clear and known to
everyone for a long time. Indeed, from the start, the Bush
administration only proposed, and telecoms only sought, immunity from
civil -- not criminal -- liability. That's because criminal prosecution
would be extremely difficult,
if not impossible, and beyond that, Bush could and likely will simply
pardon telecoms from prosecution before he leaves office (nobody who
has watched the last seven years would believe that Bush would be
deterred because pardons are deemed by courts to be technical
admissions of some level of guilt, and those asserting that pardons can't be issued until there are charges brought simply don't know what they're talking about)."
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