FISA, Congress, and the Constitution
Congress has a duty to protect the American people — and to protect the Constitution. That’s the oath we take. It’s a solemn pledge, and in my judgment the Judiciary Committee bill better reflects the oath we each swear to uphold. Why? The Judiciary Committee’s bill gives the President the added flexibility he needs to hunt and capture terrorists who would strike our homeland — but it strikes an appropriate balance between protecting the privacy rights of American citizens and providing the President adequate tools to fight international terrorism.
This is no small issue. It’s the job of Congress to find the right balance between protecting privacy and safeguarding national security. The Judiciary bill makes critical improvements to the Protect America Act to ensure independent judicial oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). It allows the secret FISC greater authority to act as an independent check on unfettered Executive power.
The Judiciary bill provides the court the authority to assess the government’s ongoing compliance with its wiretapping procedures, places limits on the way the government uses information acquired about Americans, and lets the court enforce its own orders.
The Judiciary bill also safeguards Americans against widespread warrantless spying. It reaffirms that FISA is the exclusive statutory authority for conducting foreign intelligence surveillance, prohibits limitless “fishing expeditions” — so-called “bulk collection” of all communications between the United States and overseas, and ensures that the government cannot eavesdrop on Americans under the guise of targeting foreigners — what is known as “reverse targeting.”
Most importantly, unlike the Intelligence bill, the Judiciary bill does not provide retroactive amnesty to telecommunications providers that were complicit in the Administration’s warrantless spying program. I fear this Administration is deliberately stonewalling to avoid an adverse court decision finding its surveillance program to be unconstitutional. It is seeking political security in the name of national security.
The heart of the matter is that allowing Americans their day in court — introducing some kind of accountability, affording some kind of objective authority (in lieu of the Bush Administration) to adjudicate competing claims — will shed much-needed light on the Administration’s secret surveillance program.
If the lawsuits are shielded by Congress, the courts may never rule on whether the Administration’s surveillance activities were lawful. We must hold the Administration to account. And an impartial court of law insulated from political pressure is the most appropriate setting in which to receive a fair hearing.
If the telecoms were following the law, they should get immunity, as Congress explicitly provided under the original FISA law. But our courts should decide, not Congress — and that is a matter of principle protected in the Judiciary bill, which is the bipartisan bill that should be under consideration.
I’m gratified that Senator Reid has pulled the bill from the floor for now, to give all of us more of a chance to debate the bill and make sure we get legislation that protects our national security without infringing on our Constitutional rights.
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Thank you Senator Kerry for continuing to care about our Constitutional rights. It’s getting more and more difficult to find folks in Washington who actually do.
I appreciate your efforts to protect American’s rights to privacy and the Fourth Amendment. I hope that you will persevere when the bill comes up for consideration again next year.
Thank you again Senator Kerry for protecting our civil rights. You always do the right thing. I wish you were our President and wish you were running for President. You are a true statesman.
So I watched the national news last night and tonight (on NBC) and this bit of news was nowhere to found! Astonishing.
You and I think especially Senator Dodd deserve kudos and pats on the back over the pulling of this ridiculas FISA bill. Thanks JK.
Now this leads into my next concern, the FCC. Please see my post on your latest blog.
I am pleased to hear that you support the Judiciary Committee’s version of the FISA bill and I thank you for standing up not only for those of us from Massachusetts but for all Americans who are distressed and dismayed by the way this despotic and impeachable administration has usurped our civil liberties as defined by the Constitution. I had previously searched your website kerry.senate.gov for information on your opinion on this urgent matter, but had found nothing posted. I am wondering why you are not shouting your position from every soapbox you have available?
That Chris Dodd sure is courageous. Any chance you’d be willing to put a hold on the next war funding bill? No? Well, just asking. Thanks again for voting for the war, Senator Kerry. Thanks for not stopping it.
While I applaud Senator Dodd, you must admit, a Democrat filabustering a Democratically sponsored bill in a Democratically controlled Senate?
Just what is wrong with Reid and Pelosi.
Until you all stand up to Bush the way Dodd did, I will continuue sending my money only to Dodd and Biden.
You guys have to step up.
Mr. Kerry and all of our representatives,
Are you really doing what is best for US?
Iraq-You would have gotten a lot further if you had put it back on Bush to answer why he has not held the Iraqi government accountable for holding up their end, before we “give” them more “borrowed” tax dollars. You should have limited the funding to cover 3 months only!
Health care-It is irresponsible to take taxpayer dollars and insure those that make anything over the poverty line and wrong to insure adults that are not disabled or elderly. I will get to the solution at the end.
Our seniors’ benefits-You had the nerve to take away from our seniors to give to illegal immigrants’ healthcare.
Illegal immigrants are sinking us in healthcare costs and our economy-You are NOT enforcing immigration laws against employers and others and it is bad for US in many ways. It is costing taxpayers, not employers, millions of dollars to support them and they are part of the reason healthcare and other costs are going up. Hospitals pass along their losses to citizens and their insurance companies because they have to treat illegals. Law enforcement across the country has to spend millions of dollars to prosecute and jail them for crimes that include rape and murder, let’s not forget that they are also committing identity theft, which is a felony in many states. It should be felony in all states and federal, considering what it costs the victims and our economy through higher loans and fees from credit and credit card companies.
Our economy is suffering from over 8 million Americans unemployed, meaning they are looking for work. Illegals and too many guest workers do not spend the necessary dollars in this country to keep the economy going in the earn and spend process, so it down spirals. That, in addition to loopholes that pay companies to move overseas, and trade deficits with China and other countries, are 2 more reasons for our sinking economy. And now our senators have upheld tax breaks for oil companies, leaving us holding the bag, again!
Illegals that are here and elsewhere, should be required to apply just like the ones here legally and those legally waiting their turn outside this country. Enforce the laws with $100,000 fines per illegal and mandatory jail time for the second offense for employers and others that harbor them. Those fines will cover the costs of enforcement, if done correctly. Stop wasting limited resources and get down to tracking those here that want to do us harm. As of now, they have a lot of places to hide, right along with the other illegals.
All of the problems above can be solved easily and not cost taxpayers anything!
Those funds spent on illegals could be better used to educate and get our citizens on their feet and off of welfare and other programs they need because they cannot afford to further their education, cannot find jobs or are forced to take lower paying ones. Our seniors will get the benefits they deserve and putting Americans to work that are currently unemployed or under-employed, will give them and the economy the boost needed.
ES and whimsi…
I agree Chris Dodd was great. But, if you had been paying attention for the last several YEARS, you would know that Senator Kerry has opposed this war and has been leading an effort to stop it. He is one of the reasons we now have a Democratic House and Senate, and he is pushing to increase majorities in both houses so that we gain veto-proof majorities. That’s how we will stop these disastrous Republican policies and get our country back on track.
I agree some Democrats need to step up. But Senator Kerry already has.
Thank you, Senator, for all you do for us.
Forty five State constituions deny their People the guarantee of republican form specified in Article IV, Section 4. The People of the States ratified in conventions a form that best secured the source of their liberty. Their states deny them that seurity. The check and balance protecting the People from the evils of democracy has been nullified with perfidity by the Executive, the Congress, and the Judiciary, both federal and state, for too long.
The States have been allowed to keep their favorite prerogatives for two hundred and twenty years. Slavery is gone, yet the interregnum remains, but other prerogatives continue to oppress. Womens rights,(Are women really free persons?), and laws of religious and commercial preference remain in the states. Compliance with the supreme law of the land has been left for remedy by State constitutions that are repugnate to what men and women are dying to preserve and protect in Iraq and elsewhere. We should be making a better place for them to return.
Senator Kerry,"Debate on Constitution.” Make the Constitution the issue for the coming election. If Americans are ready to give it up for their passions, fears, and prejudices then so be it. The democratic party might lose, but the Constituion will have had a chance to restate itself as the law of the land.
Make the other candidates prove an understanding of the Constitution’s role in a commercial republic. Make sure the democratic candidates understand it.
The Executive has only four jobs; entertaining at the White House, executing faithfully the laws passed by Congress in peace, executing the instructions of Congress during war, and fullfilling an oath “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” If an Executive adheres to the safe guards and constraints of the Constitution, he can’t really screw things up. The same goes for Congress.
The problem with taxes is not the tax. The problem is a market place that allows only those with preference to make enough to pay it because Congress makes regulations that ignore Article I, Section 9, clause 6, “No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce...” As a result, a few are able to harvest the industry of the rest. Adam Smith defined “preference Regulations” as the tax that oppresses. I doubt either party is blameless on this point. A common culpability shared by all but true statesmen. We stopped nominating those a long time ago.
John Edwards came close with Chris Matthews the other day, but left out the Constitutional footing.
I left a rather long reply last week reflecting the want of Constitution rhetoric currently reflected by candidates of either party. The reply has not been displayed.
For want of Constitution explains every systemic threat to American Constitutionalism that we, as a society of the whole, currently face: war, credit crisis, recession, tax policy and economic preference, systemic risk to the environment, etc.
We are about to answer, as Hamilton questioned in the Federalist Papers, “whether men are capable of self government.”
Has to mention the Constitution become the same as to mention Lord Voldemont among wizards? A word Americans would one day fear to speak!