Today’s Tosser: Illinois Review Goes for Two
Because Bill Foster voted for a procedural vote that blocked the Senate FISA bill–as he said he would when he was campaigning.
The real question is why won’t the President sign a bill without retroactive immunity for telecoms. The House can pass that and the Senate can pass that. The President has promised a veto. His argument? Telecoms won’t cooperate if they are subject to following the law.
Errrr….of course the law is that they have to cooperate with a legal warrant so if domestic wiretapping includes a warrant, that’s a completely silly argument.
The real question is why does Jim Oberweis and the Illinois Review gang want to gut the 4th Amendment.
March 13th, 2008 at
They have to have retroactive immunity so it doesn’t come out that they used illegal wiretapping to get the goods on the likes of Siegleman (D-AL) and Spitzer (D-NY) and god only knows who else.
Siegleman was railroaded and Spitzer hoisted on his own petard. But how did it all start? Who started it? Look to wiretapping and other illegal spying activities.
Whenever you ask why Pelosi and Reid cave as they do, think illegal wiretapping, blackmail, coercion, and other vile gooper tactics.
March 13th, 2008 at
Yeah that’s right it was the wiretaps that were part of some sort of big plan that did them in, glad we got that taken care of.
If we are doing all of this and that is the best we can do, a guy in Alabama and the Governor on New York who couldn’t keep it in his pants.
If this is all part of some sort of big plan to get Democrats I would like to think we would have gotten better returns on our investment.
That being said.
I guess the part I don’t get about people being against imunity, if they acted on a request from the government during a difficult time and did so thinking it was a legitimate request from the government why now make it so they can be class actioned back into the stone age. That’s the part I don’t get.
As for giving Foster a hard time about it, if Jim had won and voted against it I am sure the DNCC wouldn’t have said boo about him voting the other way
March 13th, 2008 at
Spitzer is a pretty clear case of having cause and the initial efforts weren’t wiretaps, but financial records. Siegelman might be selective prosecution, but I haven’t heard of anything that suggests illegal wiretaps were in place.
===I guess the part I don’t get about people being against imunity, if they acted on a request from the government during a difficult time and did so thinking it was a legitimate request from the government why now make it so they can be class actioned back into the stone age. That’s the part I don’t get.
That’s kind of the point–Quest refused to comply and was likely retaliated for it. If there wasn’t a warrant, how would domestic wiretapping be legal?
March 13th, 2008 at
Ms Joanne,
It is highly unlikely the Siegelman case came into play with regards to FISA. That is a cut and dry instance of prosecutorial misconduct (ie, a US Atty witch hunt).
And Spitzer just happened. It didn’t happen during the time frame of the apparent illegal circum-FISA wiretapping.
As Arch alluded, that investigation was the result of suspicious financial activity which banks legitimately reported to the Feds (it looked like money laundering patterns. Which, allegedly, it pretty much was — it just went to pay for call girls instead of drugs or weapons or whatnot). The bank activity led to the wiretaps which actually, at one point, expired. When they did, the Feds went back to court to have them renewed because they had probably cause (money laundering, Mann Act violations, etc).
All that said, there was no reason for the Feds to scoop up my phone calls and emails to work colleagues in London about work projects, kids’ goings-on, grocery lists, and plans for the weekend. Yet, under the illegal wiretapping program, they may very well have done precisely that in direct violation of both FISA and the 4th Amendment.
And yes, Oberweis probably would’ve voted opposite to Foster’s decisive vote to uphold the Constitution.
Thank God he lost. I don’t need the Feds (Dem or GOP) snoopin’ in my schtuff.
March 13th, 2008 at
While I appreciate what both of you have said, my understanding is that Spitzer was a millionaire if not a billionaire. If that’s the case, would 10′s of thousands of dollars be so meaningful that it would trigger an investigation?
I had read (and of course I have nothing to back it up) that the investigation started with Spitzer and then went to the Pimping Place because of his transactions, not the other way around.
And Siegleman was completely political to get a powerful, well liked Dem out of office. How much of a stretch is it to believe Spitzer’s demise wasn’t along the same vein? He too was a very popular dem who was good at raising money and had a TNP approach to his office.
I guess at this point it’s simply food for thought. Do you put it past the Rovian nature of the GOP?
March 14th, 2008 at
Ms Joanne,
“If that’s the case, would 10’s of thousands of dollars be so meaningful that it would trigger an investigation?”
In short, yes.
Bank transactions over $10,000 are reported to the Feds. That’s just status quo.
Knowing that, many drug runners will post transactions less than $10,000, but post several of them in proximity to each other in order to still make large payments.
Spitzer’s banking pattern included several transactions just under $10,000 to the same shell companies.
Such a pattern also triggers a flag at banks as being a possible money laundering scheme. And such things are also reported to the Feds as a matter of course.
Whether Spitzer was worth one dollar or one million dollars has nothing to do with it.
….But no, I don’t put it past the Rovian GOP either to have at least gone after Spitzer hardest if they had figured out he was a figure in the case (I don’t know if the case of “Client 9″ would’ve gone that high in the Administration though).
Bottom line, Spitzer got caught with his pants down. And, again, none of this has anything to do (so far as I can see) with the Admin’s FISA violations (such violations began well before Sept. 11, 2001, despite what the media has falsely reported).
March 14th, 2008 at
[...] Arch noted yesterday — with tongue planted firmly in cheek — that according to Illinois Review’s analysis of Congressman Bill Foster’s first vote in Congress we are, apparently, all going to die. [...]
March 14th, 2008 at
FYI, this was an interesting OpEd RE: Spitzer and the finance industry. FWIW.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_greg_pal_080314_the__24200_billion_bai.htm
March 17th, 2008 at
Telcom companies the likes of At&t have whole teams of lawyers to deal with legal wire taps. The knew, or should have known these wire taps were illegal. Qwest knew and got punished for it. And their CEO selectively prosecuted as well, although he was guilty.