000246	03bankston_wmp_a_16.wma
000000	KEVIN BANKSTON: Just to close out with a few very quick comments because I do want to give you all plenty of chances to ask questions.
000008	Unexpectedly but unfortunately the NSA program issue has taken a very partisan turn on Capitol Hill.
000017	The prospect of the administration being felons is not one that's taken lightly by its allies in Congress.
000027	I say unfortunately because this really is not and should not be a partisan issue.
000033	As you should say to your more right-wing friends or you may be a right-wing friend, how would you feel if President Hillary Clinton took it upon herself to have the authority to wiretap whoever her
000046	and her administration deemed necessary without any regard to the laws passed by Congress.
000053	But again it has turned into a partisan issue and the summer was a long fight to stop new bills from Congress that would in a variety of ways legitimate, legalize the NSA program
000108	and immunize anyone who helped with it or is helping with it.
000111	This is predictably disturbing considering Congress is legislating in the dark.
000115	It doesn't know what it's trying to approve.
000117	So it's simply drawing up the broadest expansions of surveillance power that we've ever seen, that are being made based on secret deals between the White House and the leadership in Congress 
000133	to replace a well-reasoned framework that it took several years to put together and was based on extensive hearings, that being FISA.
000140	So Congress has been poised to make a really bad mistake here and the House in fact already has passed its version of an NSA program approval bill.
000151	We're hoping that the Senate will not be able to come up with its own and put them together in lame duck.
000157	But what we're very worried is going to happen in lame duck is that some immunity provision is going to be slipped into some must-pass bill 
000205	because the telecoms now are pushing very hard to make sure that our suits cannot proceed.
000211	And they tried to slip an immunity provision into the Port Security Bill on the very last day of business before the elections.
000216	We managed to stop that, but we think more are coming.
000220	So if you are concerned about this issue, I'd recommend visiting our site action.eff.org at our main site eff.org.
000228	We will have an alert on that when they come back to session next week.
000235	Or you can sign up for our email letter at eff.org and you'll get the alert in your email box.
000239	But on that note I guess we can open it up for questions.