Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
WARNING: If you wish to be added, please be aware that this ping list is EXTREMELY active.
Posted on 06/20/2007 8:05:28 PM PDT by Politicalmom
PLEASE stay off this thread if you just want to cause trouble.
There has recently been a lot of discussion of "bad votes" made by Fred.
I believe that there had to be a good reason for any odd votes that Fred made. I want to find out what they were for, whether they were final votes, and what the ENTIRE context of the situation was.
Is anyone interested in helping me analyze his voting record?
There is a LOT of material to go through, but if we break it into pieces it shouldn't be too bad.
(Excerpt) Read more at projects.washingtonpost.com ...
If any odd votes are found, researching the bill may be done here:
The Library of Congress "Thomas"
I am not quite sure how to merge the information, but I am sure we will get some suggestions.
Researchers can bring their questions to this thread, and we can help each other out.
I started going through today, and I think we should toss out all "table" votes, unless some of you think those are important.
FReepmail me or post here if you want to volunteer, and I will start breaking up the votes by date.
Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
WARNING: If you wish to be added, please be aware that this ping list is EXTREMELY active.
Perhaps it is because he's a moderate....
Maybe the mods will help by chasing off the Fred haters and we can get some work done.
This man is much like the Gipper in that many think he is just a pretty, but getting older, face. Truth is, he has a good mind and not only thinks things through, but is able to spell it out for others so that it makes sense. Boy have we been missing this ability the last decade or so!
Some people can’t seem to access the Excel file.
The votes are also at:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/t000457/votes/
Each page fills 3-4 printer pages. There are 29 pages. Rather than going page by page as I did at first, you can put the page number into the URL.
I am going to assume “bad” vote means he sided with the dems. Just browsing through the wapost link, it looks like that was pretty rare. Do we have a tally on how many “bad” votes he made?
I’m game for taking on a few....and maybe a few more depending on how much time is involved.
Well, a lot of people consider campaign finance reform to be “bad”, but I believe that the GOP was for it.
I personally think the money limits are fine, it is the blackout periods that I have issues with, but it seems Fred has issues with those parts as well.
Generally, I would say voting against the party would be a vote to look into. He did that many times in support of States’ Rights, though.
I’ll add your name to the list. I am going to wait a little to see how many volunteers I get before I start assigning votes. Thanks for volunteering. :)
I’ll help if I can. Just not sure what it is that you’re needing done......
You have become a fan of Fred in the same way I became one.
His mind is indeed first rate and he exudes wisdom. He’s not perfect in that he can’t predict the future such as the fallout of the McCain-Feingold CFR, and we know he doesn’t walk on water.
And you would be surprised to learn that his reasoning was great on CFR also. He, like the rest of humanity, just doesn’t have a crystal ball to tell the future.
But he is wise beyond any other current candidate and any president since Reagan.
Wait til you get a chance to read his legal writing and briefs. I kid you not, when you compare his intellect with Lincoln’s essays, they are on the same level.
And another thing, he’s a federalist. Google ‘federalism’ and read about it. Make sure you read about the 20th century version of federalism. Once you understand the tenets of federalism you will understand how FDT thinks and how he lays out a foundation for decisions.
And kudos to you for recognizing that FDT knows how to break down his reasoning and logic to ideas and descriptions that ordinary folks can grasp.
I think we are very fortunate to have him come along now.
There was a written explanation of FDT’s reasoning on CFR. I misplaced it. But the reasoning was so clear that it convinced me that his heart was in the right place.
It went along the lines of analyzing how the bribe money flows in campaigns and how representative government was subverted because of the corruption of lobbyists. His aim was to even the playing field but he hadn’t thought of the end run arounds that lobbyists played through other groups.
It showed FDT is not perfect but he has guts to try. Also we all know now he is suggesting complete disclosure of contributions on the internet with tough enforcement, so that shows he is not giving up.
http://web.archive.org/web/20020825004251/thompson.senate.gov/press/2001/speeches/fs032701.html
I think we know enough about some of his tort votes, his impeachment votes, and CFR, so we should probably skip analyzing those, unless we find new tort reform votes we don’t know about.
I’ll give you some range of votes to look up on the database, and you will research any votes that look wonky by finding the text of the bill and trying to figure out what Fred’s reasoning might have been.
I expect some to be self-explanatory.(pork, unconstitutional power grab, etc).
I am sure we will have to wait for Fred to explain some of them.
I’ll add your name to the list. Thanks for volunteering.
You may be able to find many of Fred's thoughts by digging through his old Senatorial website. Some of his floor speeches are archived there.
Thanks. :)
I also have a bunch of his Official Position statements and press releases.
“One of the first Fred Thompson ‘bad votes’ I heard about was one where he voted against tort reform. Of course it was pointed out that he’s a lawyer and was just voting his own personal interest.”
Thompson has never been a tort lawyer. Please don’t fall for the falsity that all lawyers are benefited by lenient tort recovery laws and are always against tort reform. Some doctors perform abortions but not all doctors are pro-abortion.
He could not predict the fallout of the McCain-Feingold CFR????????????
Plenty of people here at FR could!!!!!!!!!!
His reasoning was great on CFR also?? His reasoning sucked. I blame McCain-Feingold-Thompson on Bush for signing that travesty, but give me a break. There were plenty of warnings about what a crap filled bill that was. CFR is one of the worst bills rammed down the pike ever (this amnesty crap is going to be far worse).
Thanks. That is the speech I remembered.
One other thing indirectly related to future CFR type efforts that is connected to FDT is that Zach Wamp, a U.S. Representative from Tennesee and one of FDT’s closest friends and advisors, just announced today that he backing the FairTax movement. That brings the percentage of the Republican caucus that are sponsoring the FairTax legislation to 30%. So I think FDT is going to hear and consider the FairTax movement as part of sweeping Tax Reform.
The FairTax replaces the Income tax and is much easier to enforce. It also removes alot of power of legislators to sell tax favors. As CFR targets contributions to legislators in return for contract steering or preferential tax treatment, the FairTax will shut down a good portion of the temple’s money changing. For sure it will bring on a fight but as Americans we do like a good fight don’t we?
The movement is growing and becoming serious. Basically Ron Paul is correct when he says the USA is going broke. In light of the coming demographic tsunami (aging boomers) and the unfunded entitlement liabilities, necessary taxes have been estimated and confirmed over and over to be in the 85% range. Tweaking the system such as removing the Social Security cap and extending retirement age out to 70 will only defer the day of reckoning by a few years. The system cannot support what’s coming period.
And we know that FDT has spoken of the coming crisis. He will have a double whammy of fiscal catastrophe and a War on Terror, which he calls “Perilous Times”.
FDT’s website has a blog with one topic addressing taxes. The majority of posts there refer to the FairTax and are in support of it. The way I see FDT handing it is to ‘let the people decide’ because the FairTax is certainly constitutional and accords with federalism by giving back to the states the power, authority and responsibility to collect taxes.
With Wamp on board, it will be interesting to see how FDT lays it out in his campaign. So far in his blog videos FDT approves of the Milton Friedman approach of taking any tax break opportunity available but he has also stated that a major tax system overhaul is necessary.
What was so egregious about the initial CFR bill? I remember reading about it here on FR and all I heard of was how it was going to cramp the advertising of candidates, the so-called Free Speech First Amendment rights.
I recall alot of conservatives before CFR who were in disbelief at the number of political ads crammed into network news and many thought it would be a good idea to cut that off for a time. I remember Al Gore and the Buddhist temple. For people to forsee how 527 orgs would out fundraise political campaigns and skirt CFR rules was not an easy task. I recall no one on FR sounding the alarm about 527 orgs and their effect. In fact the Swift Boat vets did a better job at discrediting John F’n Kerry than GW Bush ever did, could do or would do. So CFR had a beneficial effect there.
But CFR was intended to quash a good deal of corruption by special interests, that was the part FDT was focused on. He’s a corruption fighter. You got a problem with that???
I doubt from your shallow howling you have anything of substance to say about how to remove a good deal of special interest bribery and corruption from Congress. If you do let’s hear it!
I’ll bet you can’t answer the following question:
If you’re neck deep in a barrel of shit and someone is getting ready to throw a handful of snot at you, would you duck?
Because that’s how CFR was in DC. And like I said I’ll bet you ain’t got jack to offer other than your whiney mouthy posts to show the world your crude attitude.
Flame away!
Here’s what FDT was trying to stop with CFR:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1853831/posts
Johnny Chung, who admitted funneling $100,000 from the Chinese military to the DNC, would tell the Thompson Committee: “The White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates.”
No one understood this investment opportunity better than James and Moctar Riady, an ethnic Chinese father-and-son team who ran the powerful Indonesian firm the Lippo Group.
The Riadys had sensed Clinton’s sleaze potential back in Arkansas and bailed out his 1992 primary campaign at it shakiest moment. As a quid pro quo, the Riadys sought a job for their “man in America,” John Huang.
Aware of his many talents, the DNC put Huang on its “must consider” list. And what were Huang’s talents? A letter sent by an Asian outreach advocate on the stationery of David Roberti, the president pro tem of the California state Senate, was frank to a fault.
“John is the Riady family’s top priority for placement because he is like one of their own.” The Riady family, in case anyone needed reminding, “invested heavily in the Clinton campaign.”
Huang ended up in Ron Brown’s Commerce Department as a deputy assistant secretary. Curiously, he got the job on the same day embattled Clinton aide Webster Hubbell got a $100,000 check from a Riady company, and Hubbell “rolled over” once more.
Brown confidante Nolanda Hill would tell ABC’s “Prime Time Live,” according to Brown, “the White House put [Huang] there,” and in this instance, added Hill, “The White House meant Hillary Clinton.”
Whoever was responsible, Huang went to Commerce not to advance America’s interests but those of the Riadys and, by extension, those of China.
“Over the past five years,” reads the Thompson report, “the Lippo Group has shifted its strategic center from Indonesia to the People’s Republic of China.” Those five years, by the way, backdated to 1992, the year of Clinton’s election.
On one particularly revealing occasion, Huang left a CIA briefing at the Commerce Department and walked across the street where, according to the Thompson Committee, he had “a secret office.”
This office was located within the larger offices of Stephens Inc., the Little Rock-based investment-banking firm with which the Riadys and the Clintons had a long relationship. There, in private, Huang proceeded to place a three-hour call to his former employer, the Lippo Group.
Lippo had a lot at stake. The CIA briefing concerned the development by an international consortium of a massive coal-fired power plant in Indonesia called the Paiton plant.
The Lippo Group just happened to control one of the only two commercially viable low-sulfur coal mines in the world, this one conveniently located near the Paiton plant.
At the Clintons’ urging, Ron Brown helped put the Paiton deal together, and the various players thanked him profusely for his help. Among the players, as usual during these years, was the Enron Corporation.
What happens next on the American end of this saga raises a host of troubling questions. The CNN.com report on the day it happened, Sept. 18, 1996, well captures the general tenor of the reporting.
“Clinton Declares Utah Canyons A National Monument,” reads the headline.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reported that using the Grand Canyon as “his picture perfect backdrop,” Clinton “unilaterally” declared a new 1.7 million-acre national monument 70 miles away in southern Utah.
“We’re saying, very simply, our parents and grandparents saved the Grand Canyon for us,” Clinton told the cheering crowd. “Today, we will save the Grand Escalante Canyons and the Kaiparowitz Plateaus of Utah for our children.”
To his credit, Blitzer did not shy from the implicit controversy. He reported the people of Utah were “furious.” They claimed it was “a land grab” by the federal government “at the economic expense of the state.”
The rationale for the move puzzled Blitzer as Clinton already had the environmental vote, and there were many safer gestures he could have made with less than two months left in the campaign.
Blitzer raised the issue of coal, perhaps $1 trillion worth of clean, low-sulfur coal that would never be mined. Just the year before Utah had approved an environmental-friendly mining contract on the Kaiparowitz Plateau with Dutch-owned Andalex Resources.
Said Clinton of this grand environmental gesture, “We can’t have mines everywhere, and we shouldn’t have mines that threaten our national treasures.”
No, not everywhere, just in Indonesia. In a stroke of the pen, Clinton had handed the Riadys a monopoly on the world’s supply of low-sulfur coal.
One does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to connect the dots between Utah and Indonesia. The FBI had made the connection as well. Consider the following field notes from an FBI interview with Huang:
Huang laughed in response to questions concerning j. riady’s interest in Utah coal restrictions. j. riady’s coal interests were minimal. Indonesia had significant infrastructure problems which prohibited the development of its coal resources.
Huang was lying. The Riadys had a powerful interest, and they would exploit it for all it was worth. In fact, at the Paiton plant, the price of the coal exceeded the price of the electricity produced.
In 1999, PLN, the state Indonesian power company, sued the Clinton administration. Its attorneys charged U.S. officials knew the Paiton power plant contract to be awash in “corruption, collusion and nepotism” from the beginning.
By this time, though, James Riady had fled the country, and Huang had pled the fifth.
Worse, Huang’s immediate boss, Charles Meissner, and Meissner’s boss, Ron Brown, had died in the “inexplicable” crash of an Air Force CT-43A on a Croatian hillside.
*
The stereotypical view of Congress is that most of them are lawyers and the stereotypical view of lawyers is that they will vote their own self-interest more often than not.
Thank you for pointing out the fallacy, and laziness of my thinking!
It’s my opinion, see previous caveat, that if Fred Thompson is the man for the times nothing will keep him from being elected. If not, nothing will get him elected.
Your argument makes my teeth hurt.
Look, there's nothing wrong with supporting Thompson, or trying to defend his support of CFR, but please let's not rewrite history in the process.
Here's a link to one of many CFR FR threads found through the search engine. It's not very long, but it's fairly representative of the arguments against CFR at the time.
CFR was intended to quash a good deal of corruption by special interests.
Wrong. CFR was a boondoggle cooked up by special interests:
And let's not forget the timeframe of the CFR debate -- less than six months after the horrendous carnage of 9/11. Most conservatives -- and even some Dems -- cut the government, and Bush in particular, a lot of slack back then, and CFR wasn't exactly foremost on Americans' minds, in spite of the "Astroturf movement" Fund describes.
You might be better off defending Thompson by suggesting that he probably never read, or investigated the implications of, the entire bill. Looking at the current amnesty debate, it's apparent that most of our elected "lawmakers" are so busy twiddling their own little amendments, compromises or pork slices that they wind up voting for monstrosities, then running for cover by pointing to some miniscule part of the whole they brag on, or, in the case of the amnesty bill, by pretending that a vote for cloture wasn't a vote in favor of the bill.
Excellent idea and follow-through:)
I am not defending anyone.
I want to know how Republicans were hurt by CFR in the 2004 or 2006 elections.
The main argument put forward by posters on FR dealt with First Amendment issues and incumbency protection.
That doesn’t change the fact that CFR was intended, intended by FDT to limit campaign contributions from wealthy special interests. In this sense CFR was a failure because of the 527 end run around.
FDT admitted its failure in this respect. His remedy proposal is to require full disclosure via internet backed by strong enforcement.
But his current proposal still does not prevent Gore Bhuddist temple type scams.
Now back to the question I asked:
How were Republicans harmed by CFR in the last elections?
and the more important question:
What would you suggest to rid Washington of wealthy special interest control?
Like I told the previous blowhard I’ll wager you ain’t got jack other than hot air.
Good reply and correct too.
The fact is that I have found FDT’s heart is in the right place. He came into Washington having put a corrupt governor in jail. He came in with a reputation as a corruption fighter. The only vehicle he could use to start whacking the corrupt special interests in Washington was CFR. He has admitted to its failure.
The fact is that politics is dirty. As the saying goes, in politics are made strange bedfellows.
I always draw the simple well-known example of the USA making an alliance with a dictator worse than Hitler to defeat Hitler, Stalin.
If you haven’t already seen the film ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ starring James Stewart, then rent it or check it out at the library or download it off the net. Although it’s outdated it shows clearly how corruption works in Washington. However, the corruption that exists now is more dangerous because it involves foreign interests, foreigners who could care less who bombs the USA.
And since you are interested in Washington corruption because you are posting about CFR, check out how the FairTax movement will turn off alot of corruption because it will shutdown the ability to bribe Congress for preferential tax treatment, in other words ‘Buy A Loophole’.
Correction: you were not previously posting about CFR.
Could we PLEASE keep this thread on-topic?
I really wanted to keep it to the stated purpose.
How were Republicans harmed by CFR in the last elections?
Oh, I see. Passing legislation that is widely and firmly judged by conservatives to limit free speech as a first amendment right is peachy-keen if there has been no appreciable harm to Republican campaign coffers?
What would you suggest to rid Washington of wealthy special interest control?
I really don't know, and I wasn't claiming to be an expert, but was rather objecting to your characterization of the original debate and backers of CFR.
Just one final thought before riding my hot air balloon out of here: calling people who disagree with you "blowhards" really isn't a great tactic in promoting a candidate.
“Perhaps it is because he’s a moderate....”
Oh yeah. Thank god we have those heavy duty conservatives like Rudy, McLame and Paul to vote for.
I was referring to my caveat in the first paragraph, where I told what my dad used to say about opinions.
Did I say restricting free speech was “peachy-keen”?
Where do you get off about my characterization of CFR? I said it was a failure. FDT said it was a failure. What are you complaining about?
For your information I could care less if you vote for FDT or not. I am not promoting FDT or anyone to people like you because you are impaired, there’s nothing that can be done to help you.
And you admitted you don’t know how to rid Washington of the corruption, that shows you choose corruption over restrictions on large contributors a few weeks before election day. Yet 527’s can spend all they want.
So here’s my take on your hot air:
You choose corruption over CFR even though Republicans have not been hurt by restricting spending for a few weeks from large contributors.
Well, unfortunately, too many lawyers fit perfectly into your stereotype. Luckily for us, FDT doesn’t! :)
Here’s what J B Williams says:”If Fred can come up with the right answer to the hottest political issue in America today, he will be all but impossible to beat in ’08.
On the other hand, if he allows his friends over at the globally compassionate CFR to make another Bush out of him, he will find his poll numbers looking much like that of President Bush, or worse yet, that of congress.”
Right. One of his strongest supporters, Zach Wamp, is a co-sponsor of an anti-NAU bill in the House. I don’t think he would support Fred if he thought he would give away our sovereignty.
Perhaps not, but Fred is surrounded by CFR types, who we know are not conservatives!
I have been trying to make sense of the “bad” immigration
votes that Fred has supposedly made. I have already found that one of them was NOT a vote against, it was a vote to table. Who knows why it was tabled? I think it is dishonest to say that was a “bad” vote.
Anyway, I think maybe instead of going over the whole voting record, I am going to not down every “bad” bot that people come up with and investigate those. Does that sound ok? Then
each person just has to check one vote or set of votes at a time.
I found another site with legislation information, but I am having better luck with the first one.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/bills/index.html
I am investigating Senate Bill 1664 from 1994. It’s an omnibus bill, with a ton of amendments. Very hard to untangle.
Here are the other bills or amendments that need to be investigated so far:
Voted for a foreign worker bill with no anti-fraud measures in 2000. S 2045 (Sponsored by Abraham)
A)As Committee member, produced H-1B doubling bill in 1998
B)Nearly doubled H-1B foreign high-tech workers in 1998
C)Voted in committee against including worker safeguards in H-1B bill in 1998
D)Voted to allow firms to lay off Americans to make room for foreign workers in 1998
S1723 (Sponsored by Abraham) (They are counting this against him multiple times.)
More details are at:
http://profiles.numbersusa.com/improfile.php3?DistSend=TN&VIPID=743
I am having to look up the bill, find the vote date, and compare with Fred’s voting record.
***
Gun Votes to investigate:
8On April 17, 1996, the Senate passed the conference version of the anti-terrorism bill by a vote of 91-8. The final version of the bill (S. 735) contained several problems, including ones that will: order an “anti-hunter” rifle and ammo study; authorize a $40 million pay increase for the BATF (through the Treasury Department); potentially punish gun dealers (and individuals) for selling ammunition to someone they should have known would commit a violent crime; federalize many state crimes, thus tremendously increasing the scope and jurisdiction of the BATF; restrict the right of habeas corpus in such a way as to severely damage the ability of the courts to rescue honest gun owners who are unjustly incarcerated; allow the government to use “secret evidence” against certain individuals; remove protections against wiretapping wireless data; and require banks to freeze the assets of domestic groups in certain situations. Thompson once again voted in favor of the bill.
9On September 12, 1996, the Senate voted (57-42) to keep an anti-gun amendment off of the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill (H.R. 3756). The Kerry amendment — which Thompson voted for — would have made funds available for a study of tagging explosive materials, including black and smokeless powders (thus setting the stage for registering ammunition). The amendment also sought to further demonize firearms by selectively examining the misuse of firearms by criminals. The study would not examine the number of times firearms are used to save the lives of decent citizens.
10On September 12, 1996, the Senate passed the Lautenberg gun ban as an amendment to the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill (H.R. 3756). The Lautenberg Domestic Confiscation Gun Ban disarms gun owners for small (misdemeanor) offenses in the home — “offenses” as slight as spanking a child or grabbing a spouse. This lifetime ban, in certain cases, can even be imposed without a trial by jury. It is also retroactive, so it does not matter if the offense occurred 20 years ago. Thompson voted in favor of the amendment.
This was recorded as an anti-gun vote, followed by a pro-gun vote. I don’t understand the full context, I guess.
13On July 21, 1998, pro-gun Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) introduced an “Anti-Brady” amendment that passed by a vote of 69-31. The Smith amendment would prohibit the FBI from using Brady background checks to tax or register gun owners. Further, the amendment requires the “immediate destruction of all [gun buyer] information, in any form whatsoever.” Finally, if the FBI disregards this latter provision, the Smith language will allow private citizens to sue the agency and collect monetary damages, including attorney’s fees. Thompson, in keeping with his tendency to usually vote for expanded federal police power, voted against this limitation of FBI registration of gun owners.
14After the Senate passed the landmark Smith amendment by a veto-proof vote of 69-31, a joint House-Senate appropriations conference committee severely weakened its language when reporting it as part of the Omnibus appropriations bill (H.R. 4328). Originally, the Smith amendment provided for three things (see note 13 above.) Unfortunately, the requirement to immediately destroy the names was deleted. And, the “private cause of action” was stripped from the bill, meaning that aggrieved gun owners must rely on “oversight” of the FBI to obtain any relief. In a letter sent to Capitol Hill before the vote, GOA urged legislators to vote against the appropriations bill rather than accept this egregious compromise. Nonetheless, The Senate passed the Omnibus bill on October 21, 1998 by a vote of 65-29
20On July 28, 1999, the Senate ended a filibuster led by Senator Bob Smith (I-NH) — a filibuster intended to keep anti-gun crime legislation from progressing any further. After the 77-22 vote, the Senate moved to send the language of the anti-gun Senate crime bill (S. 254) to a House-Senate conference committee. Thompson voted to break the pro-gun filibuster.
The young adult gun ban could severely punish parents who allow their kids to even touch a so-called semi-automatic “assault weapon.” While the amendment allows for certain exemptions, there are some imponderable questions which NO senator could answer, but which a parent would have to answer in order to avoid incarceration. For example: What is a “semiautomatic assault weapon”? The definition, plus exemptions, takes up six pages of fine print in the U.S. Code. Second, a child can handle a banned semi-auto if he is in the “immediate and supervisory presence” of a parent or if he possess a written permission slip from the parent. But what happens when, during a target practice session, the parent walks to the car to retrieve his lunch and the juvenile is no longer in the parents “immediate” presence and does not have a permission slip? A parent can receive jail time for this infraction. The provision passed the Senate on May 13, 1999, with Thompson voting in the majority.
29On May 13, 1999, a majority of Senators — including Thompson — defeated a motion to table (or kill) an anti-gun amendment introduced by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Larry Craig (R-UT). This amendment was offered as an alternative to gun control proposals being pushed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg. [For specifics of the amendment, see note 22.]
Some of these “pro-gun control votes” are simply NOT gun votes.
4On June 6, 1995, the Senate voted for “roving wiretaps” by a vote of 77-19. This amendment to the government terror bill (S. 735) would allow government officials to wiretap one’s home if a person under investigation visits the home — even if one had no knowledge the person was a suspect. Thompson voted in favor of this expansion of government power.
5On June 7, 1995, the Senate passed an anti-gun terror bill (S. 735) by a vote of 91-8. This version of the terror bill included: a BATF pay increase of $100 million; a provision authorizing “roving wiretaps” allowing government officials to wiretap one’s home if a person under investigation visits the home — even if one had no knowledge the person was a suspect; a weakening of the Posse Commitatus law to give the military more authority to get involved in law enforcement in certain circumstances; a grant of power to the FBI to conduct “fishing expeditions” and secure one’s financial and travel records in certain circumstances without any evidence one has committed a crime; and finally, the “Randy Weaver entrapment provision” which extends the statute of limitations for violations under the National Firearms Act of 1934 from three to five years. Thompson voted in favor of the bill.
http://www.gunowners.org/pres08/thompson2.htm
I just don’t see some of these as truly “anti-gun”.
***
Let me know if you see anything that you would like to investigate. Thanks for volunteering. :)
This is unrelated to your last post, however I thought I would put this in here. It is long (55 pages) and I’m wading through just to get a sense of what Fred was thinking back in 1995.
It’s .pdf
Apologies if everyone already has it.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/rptmanagechallenge.pdf
Report of Senator Fred Thompson Chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs United States Senate
on
Management Challenges Facing the New Administration
Part 1: Financial Management Issues
Part 2: Federal Workforce Challenges
Part 3: Results-Oriented Governance
(He admits it may not be a “sexy” subject. ;)
Oops...the above is from 2000, not 1995.
Well, I'm having no success in finding documention that supports that interpretation. (All associated disclaimers to my computer search skills inserted here.)
I'm having trouble finding the original bill's (S. 735) language regarding this matter. But I know that Lieberman attempted an ammendment No. 1200 that was tabled.
Subsequently Lieberman reintroduced amendment No. 1215 and also See This Additional Reference that states the following purpose for the amendment:
SEC. . REVISION TO EXISTING AUTHORITY FOR MULTIPOINT WIRETAPS.
(a) Section 2518(11)(b)(ii) of title 18 is amended: by deleting `of a purpose, on the part of that person, to thwart interception by changing facilities.' and inserting `that the person had the intent to thwart interception or that the person's actions and conduct would have the effect of thwarting interception from a specified facility.'
(b) Section 2518(11)(b)(iii) is amended to read:
`(iii) the judge finds that such showing has been adequately made.'
Not exactly ohmygodthisisterrible language, especially when dealing with domestic terrorists trying to evade or thwart interception.
I'd like to see some link's provided from the source you posted and that I italicized at the top of my post here, that makes the claims that the "roving wiretaps" bill or amendment (a term that I've never found in any document I've searched so far today) was done with the intent or even subsequent consequence of diminishing citizen's rights. I'd also like to see evidence that any instnaces of that actually ever was shown to occur.
As for Fred's rationale in voting for the Lieberman amendment 1215, I haven't found any such opinion from Fred at this time. Will keep my eyes open, hope this helps.
Again, no phrase "roving wiretaps" and it seems to be written in the context of funding appropriations and relating to international and domestic terrorisms, WMD, etc.
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