Dear Madame Speaker:
Hello from one of your constituents: a loyal, vaguely activist party-line, Obama-donation-maxing Democrat in lovely Glen Park, San Francisco. I like you. I have tremendous admiration for what you’ve achieved in your remarkable career – for your constituents, for our party, for women, and for America. But I’m writing today because I've been less than enthralled with some of the decisions that you and your Senate counterpart, Harry Reid, have made since assuming leadership of those august bodies last winter, and because your time of testing is now, and because we cannot wait any longer, we cannot choose another battle, we cannot let the Republicans win this time. The future of American freedom is at stake, right now, this very instant – and thus, inescapably, your place, Madame Speaker, in American history.
I speak, of course, of the Protect America Act and telecom immunity. I doubt very much whether you or your staffers or anyone else who's likely to be reading this diary needs much in the way of a refresher about FISA or NSA surveillance or the gross crimes our government's intelligence apparatus has almost certainly committed in this decade; suffice it to say that it seems quite unlikely to me that Bush would be quite so adamant about insisting on telecom immunity – to the point of holding up the passage of a bill that his own people have been publicly proclaiming is absolutely necessary to the security of the nation – if he didn't have a lot of very real concern about just what exactly would come out in any future trial involving the information that the telecoms have been turning over to security officials since the months after 9/11, when Bush first authorized the oversight-free surveillance that his new Attorney General now laughably insists is "illegal."
So our illustrious president, no doubt with visions of future Paraguayan exile dancing in his head, has drawn his latest line in the sand, and for some unaccountable reason, Senator Reid promptly fell back, quailing, and surrendered the point, but the House has held firm, and the law has expired, and the GOP is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us, going back to the terror-and-security well one more time, hoping drink once more from the heady draught they use to threaten Democrats with the wrath of the (ignorant and) frightened Middle American Voter. FISA has expired! We can’t do surveillance! (False – we can still do surveillance). The companies won't comply with our requests! (False – they’ve all already complied with our requests.) The Democrats are toying with our national security. False -- America's security isn't at risk, and at any rate, Harry Reid, contemptibly, has already caved.
Which leaves you.
Now, in some cases I've defended our party leadership's decisions about whether to take on these battles. I understand the importance of winning the White House this fall, and strengthening our hold on Congress, and not giving the Republicans any clubs with which to beat our candidates over the head. I get that leadership sometimes means compromise, that we have to pick our spots.
Well, this is our spot: right here, right now. I'm quite certain that you, one of our most senior and security-clearanced government officials, understand these truths more fully than any ordinary citizen could. I'm sure you know in far more gruesome detail than the rest of us just how grievously this White House has broken the law. You know this president and vice-president deserve to be impeached (and yet I understand why you declined to focus America on that endless circus in the months and years leading up to this fall elections). You know how they've shredded the Constitution. You get it.
The question is what you're going to do about it. President Bush has made clear where he stands: he will not compromise. He wants full retroactive immunity for the telecoms or he'll tear the nation apart fighting for it. So I'm writing this diary today to tell you that, in my opinion, and I’m sure that of many millions of other Americans, and certainly many thousands of your San Francisco constituents, you have no choice: you must stand firm, for as long as it takes, and at whatever cost. Defending freedom is not optional. Protecting the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Bill of Rights is not something we only need to bother with if we calculate that it's to our party's electoral advantage in this cycle. This battle is the reason that we are all involved with politics. There will never be another opportunity to learn just what exactly our government has been doing during this decade, to punish those who violated our laws, to educate the American people about just what exactly it is that we’re saying when we talk about "civil liberties" and "protecting our freedoms." I firmly believe that if we allow the PAA renewal to pass the way the President insists it must pass, our nation's spirit and fabric and foundation will suffer irrecoverable damage.
So the House Democratic leadership must stand just as strong as our opponents, no matter the consequences. Madame Speaker, this is your moment to enter history. You must go before the American people and make three things absolutely crystal clear:
- Current law allows information gathering to continue under established statutes for one year after the FISA extension's expiration – which is to say, until after Bush leaves office, and all the telecoms are complying with government requests today, so the nation’s security is not being compromised in any way.
- The Democratic leadership is ready to pass an extension and updating of the FISA law whenever their Republican counterparts are willing to do so. However:
- The Democratic leadership will never grant the telecoms retroactive immunity. Ever. Under any circumstances. If the GOP doesn't back down on this issue, then you will have no choice but leave FISA un-updated until Bush leaves office next January, at which point that legislation will be easy to pass. And if the Republicans try to make this a partisan issue in this year’s elections, so be it: we'll just say, over and over, that we stand ready to update FISA whenever the Republicans wish to do so, but that telecom immunity is unacceptable, because we believe in the Constitution and individual freedom and, as expressions of our deep and abiding patriotism and love of country, will always do everything in our power to protect those freedoms.
It's really that simple and unequivocal and imperative. If we lose an election on those grounds, so be it. But I don't believe for a second that we will. In fact, I believe just the opposite. I believe that one of the few remaining impediments an historic Democratic blowout – the one sale we haven't yet closed – is the belief on the part of millions of Americans who voted for us in November 2006 that the Democrats are as spineless and quailing as the Republicans are corrupt, venal and incompetent. I believe that America has turned the page already and no longer desires the product that this fraudulent, fear-mongering White House is still out there peddling. I think America is just sitting there waiting for the Democratic Party to show the kind of spine that we've been lacking for years now, to demonstrate that we really are ready to lead this country in a more competent and rational and honest and compassionate and constitutional manner. I think Barack Obama is in the process of showing us all what that kind of wisdom and insight and courage and conviction looks like. By allowing the Protect America Act to expire last week, you took some greats steps of your own down that brave and wise path.
Now keep going. Don't hesitate. Not ever. The nation is depending on you, quite literally. I'm aware of how hyperbolic my language is right now, but here's the thing – I mean it. Failure here is not acceptable. The telecom immunity battle is one that we absolutely must win.
Hold firm. Please.