Russ McBee

In this interview with Amy Goodman, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) promises to filibuster the horrid FISA amnesty bill when it reaches the Senate.

First, he outlines the most potent objections to the bill:

Sen. Russ Feingold: Well, this is a great blow to the rights of the American people. And much of the publicity has been about a very important aspect: giving these telephone companies immunity that cooperated with the President's illegal program. We think that should be decided based on current law, not some kind of a retroactive immunity. But that's essentially what this bill does.

But you know what? Even worse are the provisions of the bill that will make it very easy for the government to essentially suck up the communications, all communications of Americans that go overseas, whether it's an email or a text message or a phone call to a daughter, junior year abroad, or a child who's in Iraq or a reporter or a business associate. This is one of the greatest intrusions, potentially, on the rights of Americans protected under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution in the history of our country.

And unfortunately, it's going to go through with the help of some Democrats. So this is a very, very sad day for our Constitution and for our rights, and it's not justified by the terrorism issue, because we do not have any problem at all with going after anybody that we have reasonable suspicions about. It has to do with sucking all this information into a huge database in a way that is very intrusive on the privacy of all Americans.

And the craven, cowardly politics of it all:

This is nothing but Democrats trying to pretend that they're doing something here. They are doing nothing. They're giving in. Senator Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri, is basically giggling at the fact that the Republicans and the administration got essentially everything they want on this. It's sadly a great failure on the part of the Democratic majority that was elected in 2006 primarily to get us out of Iraq, but also significantly to protect the Constitution of the United States. This is not a proud moment.

And what he plans to do about it:

Amy Goodman: Senator Feingold, will you filibuster this bill?

Sen. Russ Feingold: We are going to resist this bill. We are going to make sure that the procedural votes are gone through. In other words, a filibuster is requiring sixty votes to proceed to the bill, sixty votes to get cloture on the legislation. We will also - Senator Dodd and I and others will be taking some time to talk about this on the floor. We're not just going to let it be rubberstamped.

Amy Goodman: Would you filibuster, though?

Sen. Russ Feingold: That's what I just described.

I have no doubt his filibuster will be stopped, but at least someone on Capitol Hill has the spine to stand up to the White House. It's just too bad the leadership of the House and Senate don't have the courage to do the same. It never ceases to amaze me that Reid and Pelosi lack the political will to take a stand against the discredited policies of a president whose popularity rating hovers somewhere around that of the plague.