Sen. Leahy: Supreme Court thinks corporations can be president

By Eric W. Dolan RAW Story
Thursday, March 29, 2012

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Thursday that corporations could be elected president according to the rationale of the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

“I remain troubled today that the Supreme Court extended to corporations the same First Amendment rights in the political process that are guaranteed by the Constitution to individual Americans,” he said at a hearing on the DISCLOSE Act of 2012. “Corporations are not the same as individual Americans. Corporations do not have the same rights, the same morals or the same interests. Corporations cannot vote in our democracy.”

According to the Supreme Court’s logic, we should elect corporations to public office, Leahy said.

“This country has elected General Eisenhower as president, shouldn’t we elected General Electric as president? We know we like to elect a lot of yahoos as vice president, why not elect Yahoo as a corporation as vice president. ”

“Vermonters and Americans across the country have long understood that corporations are not people in this political process,” he continued. “Unfortunately, a very narrow majority on the Supreme Court apparently did not.”

The controversial Citizens United ruling struck down key provisions of the federal McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law and gave rise to superPACS, which have caused campaign spending by outside groups to skyrocket. SuperPACs have also exploited a loophole that allows them to postpone the disclosure of their donors until after the elections they participate in.

The DISCLOSE Act of 2012 would require any organization that spends 10,000 or more during an election cycle to file a report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours. It would also require the head of any organization that puts out a political ad on TV or radio to state that he or she approves the message, similar to what candidates must do now.

The DISCLOSE Act of 2010 was blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube on March 29, below:

Congressional Leaders Reach Patriot Act Deal

(FUCKERS! Constitution-violating FUCKERS!--jef)

Friday, May 20, 2011 by Politico.com
Leaders Reach Patriot Act Deal
by Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

Top lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a deal to extend the Patriot Act for four years, a week before key provisions were set to expire.

 The pieces of the law that allow the federal government to compel businesses to release records, issue roving wiretaps, and monitor so-called “lone wolf” terror suspects were set to run out on May 27. The outline of the deal between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) still needs to pass both chambers in the next seven days to avoid a lapse in the law.

Reid went to the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon to file cloture on the bill, setting up a vote for Monday night.

“Sens. Reid and McConnell have introduced a clean, four-year extension of the Patriot Act, one of the critical tools the intelligence community has to keep America safe. The Senate will consider this legislation next week,” said Michael Brumas, a McConnell spokesman.

Extending the Bush-era surveillance law has not been a slam dunk for House GOP leaders this year. In fact, Republicans were unable to muster enough votes to fast-track the bill through the House earlier this year because of objections from lawmakers ranging from libertarian-minded conservatives to liberal Democrats. When a 90-day extension passed earlier this year, Republicans needed Democrats to carry it across the finish line.

House Republicans were readying to push through their own, more ambitious, bill this week. They were going to take up Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s (R-Wis.) bill, which extended the business records and roving wiretap provisions for six years, and the “lone wolf” element permanently. Several House Republicans were averse to extending anything permanently, including conservative House Republicans like Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

If the bill is amended in either body, its changes will need to be adopted by both chambers. The House is only scheduled to be in session through Thursday and the law expires Friday, making time of the essence.

Before their week-long recess this week, House Republicans had started the hard sell on the Patriot Act. They had a closed briefing with Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, and heard stern warnings from House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Cailf.) that they should get their questions answered before voting “no.” GOP aides and lawmakers were also saying that the death of Osama bin Laden should give urgency to extending the law, although the Patriot Act deals with domestic surveillance, not foreign.

Another plus for both parties: the four-year compromise places the vote in 2015 — which is not an election year.

Civil liberties groups reacted with anger to the news of a four-year extension for the controversial law without committee review.

“That is how the Patriot Act first came into being 10 years ago—without meaningful debate,” said the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in a statement issued on Thursday night.

“Today, despite the prior approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee of a bill introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to impose some (albeit inadequate) reforms, the congressional leadership is dictating the result of a long overdue policy debate that has never happened.”

Will Internet censorship bill be pushed through lame-duck Congress?

By Daniel Tencer - Sunday, November 14th, 2010

A bill giving the government the power to shut down Web sites that host materials that infringe copyright is making its way quietly through the lame-duck session of Congress, raising the ire of free-speech groups and prompting a group of academics to lobby against the effort.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in Congress this fall by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It would grant the federal government the power to block access to any Web domain that is found to host copyrighted material without permission.

Critics say the bill is both a giveaway to the movie and recording industries and a step towards widespread and unaccountable censorship of the Internet.

Opponents note that the powers given the government under the bill are very broad. Because the bill targets domain names and not specific materials, an entire Web site can be shut down. So for example, if the US determines that there are copyright-infringing materials on YouTube, it could theoretically block access to all of YouTube, whether or not particular material being accessed infringes copyright.

Activist group DemandProgress, which is running a petition against the bill, argues the powers in the bill could be used for political purposes. If the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is found to be hosting copyrighted material, for instance, access to WikiLeaks could be blocked for all US Internet users.

Though the bill was delayed in September after an outcry from activist groups, it now appears to be back and potentially poised for quick passage in the lame-duck session of Congress, reports DemandProgress.

A group of academics, led by Temple University law professor David Post, have signed a petition opposing COICA.

"The Act, if enacted into law, would fundamentally alter U.S. policy towards Internet speech, and would set a dangerous precedent with potentially serious consequences for free expression and global Internet freedom," Post wrote in the petition letter (PDF).

The bill is "awful on many fronts," he wrote at Volokh Conspiracy. "It would allow a court to effectively shut down a site operated out of Brazil, or France, without any adversary hearing ... or any reasoned determination that the site actually is engaged in unlawful activity."

"Even more significant and more troubling, the Act represents a retreat from the United States’ historical position as a bulwark and beacon against censorship and other threats to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the free exchange of information and ideas around the globe."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a list of Web sites it believes are at highest risk of being shut down under the proposed law. Included in the list are file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Mediafire, music mash-up sites like SoundCloud and MashupTown, as well as "sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or for piracy," such as pirate-party.us and P2PNet.

A TOOL FOR POLITICAL CENSORSHIP?

Free speech advocates argue that Internet censorship laws are inevitably used for purposes other than the ones claimed by lawmakers.

For instance, Australia in recent years set up a "firewall" around its Internet, with the intention of blacklisting child pornography Web sites. But a list of the blocked sites, leaked to Wikileaks, showed that the Australian government was censoring more than porn: The blacklist contained religious and political Web sites.

According to the Melbourne Age:

But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.
"It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," [University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn] Landfelt said.

As predicted by some critics, the "great Aussie firewall" ended up blocking access to parts of WikiLeaks.

Broad Bipartisan Coalition Fighting Fed In Senate

Broad Bipartisan Coalition Fighting Fed In Senate
by Ryan Grim

As unusual a coalition as can be crafted in the Senate plans to fight for an amendment to the Wall Street reform bill that would open the Federal Reserve to a serious audit by the Government Accountability Office. Sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the language is modeled after an amendment that passed the House, sponsored by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Sanders is joined by four Republicans of varying politics: John McCain (Ariz.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), David Vitter (La.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.). If Democrats in the Senate back the measure, it would have at least 63 votes, but Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is opposed and has argued against a broad audit.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), is also a cosponsor, as is Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). The group is actively gathering cosponsors as the Senate continues to vote to break a GOP filibuster which is preventing debate from beginning.

"For nearly nine decades, the GAO has a proven track record of conducting objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, non-ideological, fair, and balanced audits. Through these audits, the GAO helped save the American taxpayers $50 billion last year alone by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government," reads a letter circulated by Sanders. "Let's not equate independence with secrecy. We cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer. There is simply too much money at stake."

Read the letter:

Support the Sanders-Feingold-DeMint-Leahy-McCain-Vitter-Brownback Federal Reserve Transparency Amendment to the Financial Reform Bill

The American people have a right to know who received over $2 Trillion in financial assistance from the Federal Reserve.

Since the beginning of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has provided over $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed loans and other financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the world. Unfortunately, the Fed is still refusing to tell the American people or the Congress who received most of this assistance, how much they received or what they are doing with this money. This money does not belong to the Federal Reserve, it belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where their taxpayer dollars are going.

Therefore, during the consideration of the financial reform bill, we will offer an amendment to increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. Specifically, our amendment:

* Requires the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an independent and comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve within one year after the date of enactment of the financial reform bill;

* Requires the GAO to submit a report to Congress detailing its findings and conclusion of their independent audit of the Fed within 3 months; and

* Requires the Federal Reserve within one month after the date of enactment to disclose the names of the financial institutions and foreign central banks that received financial assistance from the Fed since the start of the recession, how much they received, and the exact terms of this taxpayer assistance.

* Does not interfere with or dictate the monetary policies or decisions of the Federal Reserve.

59 Senators, 320 Members of Congress, and two federal courts have called on the Federal Reserve to become more transparent.

Our amendment is similar to an amendment that was offered to last year's Budget Resolution that passed the Senate on a bi-partisan vote of 59-39 on April 1, 2009; S.604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act that now has 33 bi-partisan co-sponsors; and the Federal Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 1207) that has 320 bi-partisan co-sponsors (a version of which passed the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 43-28 and was incorporated into the financial reform bill that passed the House last December).

In August of 2009, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York also ordered the Fed to disclose the recipients of this taxpayer assistance as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Bloomberg News. This decision was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan on March 19, 2010.

The Senate Financial Reform Bill does not do enough to make the Fed more transparent.

While the Senate financial reform bill attempts to address the lack of transparency at the Fed, as currently drafted, much of the information regarding the details of who received this financial assistance could be kept secret forever.

As long as the Federal Reserve is allowed to keep the information on their loans secret, we may never know the true financial condition of the banking system. The lack of transparency at the Fed could lead to an even bigger crisis in the future.

We now know that the lack of transparency in credit default swaps led to the $182 billion taxpayer bailout of AIG; the collapse of Lehman Brothers and precipitated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

We know who received TARP funding.

Anyone with access to the internet can go onto the Treasury Department's website and find out exactly who received a bail-out from the $700 billion TARP program. The American people have a right to know the same information from the Fed.

The Sanders Amendment does not undermine the Fed's independence.

This amendment does not take away the "independence" of the Fed and it does not put monetary policy into the hands of Congress.

This amendment does not tell the Federal Reserve when to cut short-term interest rates or when to raise them. It does not tell the Federal Reserve what banks to lend money to and what banks not to lend money to. It does not tell the Federal Reserve what foreign central banks they can do business with and which ones it cannot do business with. It does not impose any new regulations on the Federal Reserve nor does it take any regulatory authority away from the Fed.

This amendment simply requires the GAO to conduct an independent audit of the Fed and requires the Fed to release the names of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed assistance.

For nearly nine decades, the GAO has a proven track record of conducting objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, non-ideological, fair, and balanced audits. Through these audits, the GAO helped save the American taxpayers $50 billion last year alone by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

Let's not equate independence with secrecy. We cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer. There is simply too much money at stake.