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Open letter to readers: Today and tomorrow

By Lynda Waddington | 11.17.11

Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.

ACS lockout continues; plan emerges to repeal sugar protections

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By Virginia Chamlee | 11.15.11

A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.

Cain campaign: Farmers know more about regulations than EPA

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By Andrew Duffelmeyer | 11.15.11

The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.

Mathis wins, Democrats maintain Senate control

Liz Mathis
By Lynda Waddington | 11.08.11

The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.

Press Release

PR: Nation should work to address veterans’ challenges

By Press Release Reprints | 11.11.11

BRUCE BRALEY RELEASE — As US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan ends, it’s more important than ever that our nation works to address the challenges faced by the men and women who fought there.

PR: Honoring veterans, help in hiring

By Press Release Reprints | 11.11.11

CHUCK GRASSLEY RELEASE — A difficult job market is challenging the soldiers, sailors and airmen who have protected America’s interests by serving in the Armed Forces.

PR: In honor of America’s veterans

By Press Release Reprints | 11.11.11

TOM LATHAM RELEASE — No one has done more to secure the freedom enjoyed by every single American than our veterans and those currently serving in the armed services.

PR: Honoring and supporting our nation’s veterans

By Press Release Reprints | 11.11.11

DAVE LOEBSACK RELEASE — Veterans Day is an opportunity to reflect on the service of generations of veterans and to honor the sacrifices they and their families have made so that we may live in peace and freedom here at home.

FISA Fight Focused on Boswell, Blue Dogs

By John Deeth | 02.13.08 | 9:31 pm

Leonard Boswell prominently displays a “Blue Dog Conservative Democrat” logo on his House Web page. And this week, his Blue Dog partners control the fate of federal legislation granting telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for cooperating with the government in warrantless surveillance.

Boswell and other self-described Blue Dogs are bucking Democratic leadership and joining with House Republicans to keep the retroactive immunity provision the Bush Administration wants. 

The Protect America Act, a stopgap measure, has been in place since a classified ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reportedly imposed limitations on the government’s warrantless eavesdropping activities. The Protect America Act was meant to allow the federal government to continue ongoing investigations while Congress crafted a more permanent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and it had a six-month sunset provision. That’s set to expire on Friday.

On Jan. 28, Boswell was one of 21 Blue Dogs who signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsing the Republican version of the FISA bill. The Senate bill “contains satisfactory language addressing all these issues,” they wrote, “and we would fully support that measure should it reach the House floor without substantial change.” House Democrats passed their version, called the RESTORE Act (if you like acronyms, that’s Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective), 227-189 in November. The House plan does not include retroactive immunity. Iowa’s delegation split on party lines at that time, with Democrats Boswell, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack for and Republicans Steve King and Tom Latham opposed.

But President Bush says he’ll veto any FISA bill that doesn’t include retroactive immunity, and the administration has fought hard for the provision in the evenly divided Senate. Senate progress stalled in December thanks to an effort led by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who interrupted his presidential campaign two weeks before the Iowa caucuses to filibuster the Senate version until Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., shelved the bill. Temporarily, as it turned out.

With Friday’s deadline looming, Dodd and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., offered an amendment Tuesday to remove retroactive immunity, but failed on a 67-31 vote. Iowa’s Tom Harkin supported the amendment while Chuck Grassley was opposed. (Of the presidential candidates, John McCain opposed the amendment, Barack Obama supported it and Hillary Clinton missed the vote.)

Dodd called the Senate’s vote “the single largest invasion of privacy in American history.”

So now the action returns to the House. “There will be little, if any, time for conference” to reconcile the House and Senate versions, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. With 15 of the 21 Blue Dogs, the Republicans can win passage even in a Democratic House, but with seven of them, Pelosi and the Democratic leadership can block passage.

Democrats tried to buy time with a three-week extension, but lost that vote 229-191 Wednesday night against a unanimous Republican vote. Thirty-four Democrats voted with the Republicans. That included Boswell and the Blue Dogs, plus a collection of progressives who oppose the entire Protect America Act, such as Dennis Kucinich.

Matt Browner Hamlin, formerly of Dodd’s presidential campaign, examined campaign contributions and found that all 21 House Blue Dogs had received money from telecommunications PACs. Boswell got $5,000 from AT&T.

Comments

  • Fourth Amendment, Shmourt

    The Senate bill is worse than you know The ACLU has a great analysis of the Senate bill. It’s not just about retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

    http://www.aclu.org/… gen…eg20071102.html

    The Senate bill does not allow the court to oversee surveillance of American citizens.

    Under the Senate bill, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence would report to the FISA court on overall procedures designed to avoid targeting Americans’ domestic communication, but the court would not know what communications were surveilled, or what information was obtained. And it would have to take the Executive agencies’ word that they follow the overall procedures they say they  are following. Horrible.

    From the ACLU’s analysis:

    “Further, the orders will be nearly blank as they do not even need to specify who’s being surveilled, the type of communications being collected, or even the facilities the government is tapping into. This again raises acute Fourth Amendment problems of probable cause and particularity.”

    “After the fact, aggregate review of processes does not meet the Fourth Amendment requirements of probable cause and particularity. Just like the Protect America Act, the Administration / Rockefeller bill renders the secret FISA court nearly useless, allowing it intervene only after surveillance is under way, and then only on the basis of information handed over by the executive branch.”

  • Right Democrat

    Boswell takes common sense position on FISA Representative Boswell and the Blue Dogs are right. We don’t need to tie the hands of our intelligence agencies or penalize the telecommunications companies that cooperated in efforts to monitor potential terrorist activity. Keep in mind, we are talking about the monitoring of international and not domestic calls in the aftermath of 9-11.

  • Fourth Amendment, Shmourt

    The Senate bill is worse than you know The ACLU has a great analysis of the Senate bill. It's not just about retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

    http://www.aclu.org/… gen…eg20071102.html

    The Senate bill does not allow the court to oversee surveillance of American citizens.

    Under the Senate bill, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence would report to the FISA court on overall procedures designed to avoid targeting Americans' domestic communication, but the court would not know what communications were surveilled, or what information was obtained. And it would have to take the Executive agencies' word that they follow the overall procedures they say they  are following. Horrible.

    From the ACLU's analysis:

    “Further, the orders will be nearly blank as they do not even need to specify who's being surveilled, the type of communications being collected, or even the facilities the government is tapping into. This again raises acute Fourth Amendment problems of probable cause and particularity.”

    “After the fact, aggregate review of processes does not meet the Fourth Amendment requirements of probable cause and particularity. Just like the Protect America Act, the Administration / Rockefeller bill renders the secret FISA court nearly useless, allowing it intervene only after surveillance is under way, and then only on the basis of information handed over by the executive branch.”

  • Right Democrat

    Boswell takes common sense position on FISA Representative Boswell and the Blue Dogs are right. We don't need to tie the hands of our intelligence agencies or penalize the telecommunications companies that cooperated in efforts to monitor potential terrorist activity. Keep in mind, we are talking about the monitoring of international and not domestic calls in the aftermath of 9-11.

  • Anonymous

    Helping erode the Constitution, weakening the 4th ammendment and infringing on the rights and privacy of American citizens is not an act of common sense. For starters, both international and domestic calls were being monitored. Why else would the Bush Administration be so adamant about the retroactive immunity for telecommunication comapnies? Several lawsuits have already been filed against Verizon and AT&T; for handing over their phone records, thus infringing upon their customers' rights/privacy.

    And now Bush, with the help of the Blue Dogs have taken away the only means of accountability for these illegal, unwarranted actions. The only way we were ever going to find out who they were listening to was through the civil suit process. If they were not monitoring domestic citizens, fine, then the civil suits would have made this clear.

    By the way, the records the companies turned over to the Bush administration dated back before 9-11, thus negating any cause-effect relationship stemming from 9-11 — which merely served as a concrete rationale for the illegal wiretapping that had already been transpiring.

    The telecommunication companies did not have to turn those records over to the government, not should they have done so. They broke the law, and helped the Bush administration break more laws. Qwest, for example, did not and chose to uphold the 4th ammendment. Those who did should be held accountable for their dereliction.

  • Anonymous

    Helping erode the Constitution, weakening the 4th ammendment and infringing on the rights and privacy of American citizens is not an act of common sense. For starters, both international and domestic calls were being monitored. Why else would the Bush Administration be so adamant about the retroactive immunity for telecommunication comapnies? Several lawsuits have already been filed against Verizon and AT&T for handing over their phone records, thus infringing upon their customers’ rights/privacy.

    And now Bush, with the help of the Blue Dogs have taken away the only means of accountability for these illegal, unwarranted actions. The only way we were ever going to find out who they were listening to was through the civil suit process. If they were not monitoring domestic citizens, fine, then the civil suits would have made this clear.

    By the way, the records the companies turned over to the Bush administration dated back before 9-11, thus negating any cause-effect relationship stemming from 9-11 — which merely served as a concrete rationale for the illegal wiretapping that had already been transpiring.

    The telecommunication companies did not have to turn those records over to the government, not should they have done so. They broke the law, and helped the Bush administration break more laws. Qwest, for example, did not and chose to uphold the 4th ammendment. Those who did should be held accountable for their dereliction.

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