Most recently, she made a public statement backing legal immunity for telco firms in wiretap cases. For an excellent explication why this is just another case of Diane selling out watch the video from Countdown with Chris Dodd of Mark Klein, former AT&T technician who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee where Ms. Feinstein represents the swing vote in a 10-9 Democratic majority.
No Telecom Immunity
If you saw Countdown last night, you saw Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician who is testifying today in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that
AT&T had technology which helped the Bush administration spy on emails.
And not just e-mails abroad or from suspected terrorists... everything. On a practical level, granting these firms immunity will halt the lawsuits that are currently filed to demand to know exactly what these telecoms have done and whose communications and information has been compromised. That's unacceptable.
Matt at the Chris Dodd campaign interviewed Klein yesterday, check out what he has to say for yourself.
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Before that, she voted for the confirmation of Judge Mukasey.
I believe that Judge Mukasey is the best nominee we are going to get from this administration and that voting him down would only perpetuate acting and recess appointments, allowing the White House to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide and to diminish effective oversight by Congress.Serious questions have been raised about Judge Mukasey's views on torture and on the separation of powers.In the hearing, Judge Mukasey clearly expressed his personal repugnance regarding torture. And in a letter dated Oct. 30, he reiterated his personal views and described in detail the analysis he would undertake if confirmed. He wrote:
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I would not add this to the list if it wasn't for the fact that it is part of a list, a pattern. Mukasey has documented that warterboarding is not allowed, and repugnant, in certain contexts, as the article above explains. However, her refused to declare it to be, unequivocally, torture and in need of being banned outright.
Meanwhile, a former interrogation instructor for the Navy said the words that congressional Democrats wanted to hear from Mukasey: waterboarding is torture and should be banned.
"Waterboarding is torture, period," Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a former Navy instructor of prisoner of war and terrorist hostage survival programs, told a House constitutional subcommittee. "I believe that we must reject the use of the waterboard for prisoners and captives and cleanse this stain from our national honor."
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said at the panel's hearing that he is against torture but that "sometimes we have to take measures to protect the innocent that we do not like."
"Severe interrogations are sometimes part of doing that," said Franks, the ranking Republican on the panel.
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Finally, and possibly most inexplicably, she voted FOR the Kyl-Lieberman amendment (as did Hilary Clinton) that could easily amount to another blank check to the Bush administration to declare ware on Iran.
Check the following Talking Points Memo video for details of why this is so scary.
Another angle to this story is the fact that, while Barack Obama made a lot of noise about how Hilary Clinton voted for this amendment, he did show up to vote against it. Nor did he or or several candidate show up to for against Mukasey.
Not Voting - 7Alexander (R-TN)
Biden (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Dodd (D-CT)
McCain (R-AZ)
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