Jay Rockefeller is a Liar

Senator Jay Rockefeller is a liar. Glenn Greenwald goes to great length to point out that Rockefeller is a smug Bush crony:

When Rockefeller smugly announces that he "thinks we will prevail," the "we" on whose behalf he is so proudly speaking is Bush and Cheney, lawbreaking telecoms, and all Republican Senators. The only parties whom Rockefeller is so happily "defeating" are civil liberties groups and members of his own party. That is what is making him feel pulsating sensations of excitement and "smugness."

He is being allowed to win only because he is advancing the Bush agenda and those of his largest corporate donors, and waging war against members of his own party, acting to destroy the allegedly defining values of that party.

The worst part of Rockefeller's statement, the most infuriating and mendacious is when he paints telcos as some poor, "helpless" victims unable to defend themselves.

"If people want to be mad, don't be mad at the telecommunications companies, who are restrained from saying anything at all under the State Secrets Act. And they really are. They can't say whether they were involved, they can't go to court, they can't do anything. They're just helpless. And the president was just having his way."

The solution isn't to bar Americans from suing telcos (even when they break the law), the solution is simply to add a provision to FISA enabling telcos to submit that evidence in secret, the way classified evidence is submitted to federal courts all the time. 50 USC 1806(f) already says that, but even if it didn't, Congress could amend it to do so.

But that would be work. And it would anger Bush and Cheney. And Rockefeller works for them. Apparently.

Rockefeller's claim that telecoms can't submit exculpatory evidence to the court is a lie, an absolute lie. There is no other accurate way to describe his statement.

As Greenwald says, "Under FISA (50 USC 1806(f)), telcos are explicitly permitted to present any evidence in support of their defenses in secret (in camera, ex parte) to the judge and let the judge decide the case based on it. That section of long-standing law could not be clearer, and leaves no doubt that Rockefeller is simply lying when he says that telecoms are unable to submit secret evidence to the court to defend themselves."