Art Torres Lied To Us

Several months ago, at a time where Dianne Feinstein was facing censure for a series of votes siding with the Bush Administration over Democratic values or the Constitution, Art Torres assured us all, in a highly emotional speech, that he discussed telecom immunity, a forthcoming issue, with her, and that "thanks to her" immunity was stripped from the bill.

"Don't believe me, ask my friend Senator Dodd, who will tell you that she led the effort along with him to make sure that [immunity] wasn't in the official bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee."

That wasn't true then, of course; Patrick Leahy's ju-jitsu by putting immunity in Title II of the bill and then dropping it was what did the trick. But of course, that wasn't enough. The Intelligence Committee bill, the one with amnesty for the phone companies, was what made it to the floor. Feinstein offered some amendments. Her "exclusivity" amendment to make FISA the exclusive means under which government spying takes place "failed" because only 57 Senators voted for it; under the unanimous consent agreement, that particular amendment needed 60 votes to pass because it had too much support. This essentially invalidates all laws passed by the Congress, since in the absence of exclusivity, what is implied is that the President has the ability to go outside whatever law is passed.

So in that environment, there was a vote to strip telecom immunity from the bill. This is something the President alone can't dictate to the courts. This is the only opportunity to find the truth about how our government spied on us. And Dianne Feinstein, hoping that we weren't paying attention, voted against stripping it out.

It was a few months away from any pressure on her, so she felt OK with allowing the President to break American laws. Here's what's happening today:

The Senate today -- led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus -- will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate -- led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick -- are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.

Every single Senator, all of whom committed to a unanimous consent agreement that precluded any possibility to amend the bill, is responsible. But everyone in the world knew Dianne Feinstein would sell us out and give the phone companies what they wanted for violating civil liberties. Everyone, that is, except for Art Torres.

I'd like a personal apology, thanks. So should everyone who was in that room in Anaheim.