A senator cannot be prosecuted for anything said on the senate floor.

[noamnety]

Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution: "for any speech or debate in either House, they {a Senator or Representative} shall not be questioned in any other place."

The historical significance of this: it was the reason the Supreme Court ruled that Mike Gravel could not be prosecuted for entering the classified Pentagon Papers into the Senate Record. (Gravel vs. The United States Government). This was instrumental in letting the public know JFK's illegal involvement in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and was critical in ending the Vietnam War. (It's noteworthy that Gravel did not withhold the information from the American public for the sake of protecting other democrats, no matter how high up they were - he did what was morally right, not what was politically expedient for party reelections.)

The current significance is that we should not be giving a free pass to those in Congress who know about the torture and what had been approved. Whether or not the documents were classified, whether or not they were "sworn to secrecy," Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution provided them with a means of entering this into the Congressional Record. Senators have done it before, and preventing international war crimes is a valid reason for them to have done it again.

[ShortnFiery]

1. But no free pass in "The Court of Public Opinion."

:evilgrin:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Mike Gravel

(pronounced Gra-VELL) is one of the greatest heroes in our country's Congressional history. How many people know that he almost single-handedly ended the draft? He was an amazing Senator, a gutsy leader, and I wish we had more Mike Gravels in Congress today.

Here's his bio from his website. A truly great American:

http://www.mikegravel.us/bio



Thank you for reminding me of Senator Gravel today, of all days..................

[noamnety]

5. I fully agree.

The way the torture was handled by the people in our own party makes me overwhelmingly sad that he was so marginalized during the campaign. I'm feeling that today in a large way.

[kristopher]

3. Unfortunately that...

doesn't extend to protection from blackmail with information gathered by the NSA. But you've made an excellent point.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Fascinating. How brilliant were those Founding guys anyway?

Kudos to Mike Gravel. That was very smart and very brave.

[Muttocracy]

6. isn't it amazing how many things they couldn't have imagined yet they still planned for?! nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. What I'm noticing,

especially now that we know that this torture stuff was started long before there was any call for it is that it has a serious and probably definitive psychosexual component.

These men who got this thing going, and who took such exquisite care to write those memos, plan those scenarios, and - you just know this is true - got the reports of what was going on as it was going on, were probably hard as rocks as they did all of it. It's that kind of stuff that gets them off, the stuff their twisted sexual fantasies are made of.

I'm serious about this. We're dealing with incredible pathologies here. What kind of people go into this much detail when you're talking about torturing another human being?

And why did Donald Rumsfeld so abruptly cut his only visit to Abu Ghraib short after only a few minutes? He just walked out and never went back. A little too close to home, eh, Don? Had to get yourself somewhere private so that you could bring it to a handy conclusion?

Twisted. Sexually twisted men who made sexually twisted plans, and they tried to obliterate our Constitution for their own impotent pleasures.

Pigs .........................................

[noamnety]

9. War Porn.

I wonder if Rumsfeld felt he had to leave to maintain plausible deniability, or if he was stunned to see it being just a bit more real than what he was prepared for.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

11. Or he got so aroused on so many levels,

he had to stop.

All are possible.

[gamecock]

14. The latter. nt

[noamnety]

8. Quite a contrast

They were able to plan for things they likely couldn't imagine, while our current crop was seemingly unable to learn from the recent past.

[Adsos Letter]

10. They remembered valuable lessons of English liberty...

iirc, the English Parliament had a history of upholding the right of free speech/freedom from prosecution for issues/things said by parliamentarians within chambers.

The great beauty of our founders was that they actually valued the lessons of history. :hi:

[Muttocracy]

12. true, what's amazing to me is how well the way they wrote the basic documents holds up

despite huge social and technological change.

[Adsos Letter]

13. I agree wholeheartedly!

The basic principles of Liberty/inalienable rights are wonderfully applicable to change of historical moment; I have always viewed our documents as suited to the expansion of liberty/freedom, when the spirit is adhered to.

[RoyGBiv]

15. Careful with that ...

Gravel v. U.S. was not, strictly speaking, about Gravel's right to read the PP into the Congressional Record, even though his immunity from prosecution from doing so was upheld as a part of the decision. (It was, for all intents and purposes, merely reasserted. This was not the main subject of dispute.) This case was more about whether the immunity he enjoyed extended to his aide who had helped him do this and whether his releasing the papers to a private publisher was also covered under the Speach and Debate clause.

The Court ruled the aide was covered within the legislative sphere but that the private publication was not. In addition, the Court ruled against Gravel on the matter of whether his aide could be compelled to testify in an investigation of any wrong-doing in having the report privately published.

Also pertinent to the decision was the fact that the report was put into Gravel's possession via an intermediary from Ellsberg, he being the one who had leaked the report to the New York Times. The ruling implied without ruling directly since it was not relevant, and Gravel's attorney's accepted, that had he personally stolen the report or acquired it illegally through an act he initiated, the Speech and Debate clause would not have applied, and both he and his aides could have been prosecuted.

Gravel's involvement came in the amidst the efforts of the Nixon administration attempting to stop the New York Times from publication of the report leaked to them by Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg had been attempting to get Senators to *publish* the report on the premise that the Speech and Debate clause would protect them, but all had refused. He then offered the report to the Times, which went ahead with publication and initiated the NYTCo v the U.S. case that ended up ruling in favor of the newspaper.

The Gravel decision has been noteworthy since in setting the limits of executive, legislative and judicial immunity, sometimes against those claiming it.

Anyway ... your point is certainly valid in the sense that if members of Congress have access to documents they could rightly read them into the Congressional record without fear of prosecution. And clearly Gravel is to be commended for what he did. The key in the present circumstance is whether they have legal access to those documents or had been given those documents by some other party. They can't, IOW, just go to the NSA or CIA and say, "Give me all your documents," because those organizations won't give them, generally speaking, nor could they break in and steal them.

Gravel v. U.S., complete decision with footnotes

[noamnety]

16. "his immunity from prosecution from doing so was upheld. "

That's the key point.

There were congress people who had been briefed. They didn't have to illegally obtain the documents, or go to the NSA or CIA and demand copies. They could have simply spoken about what they knew and they would have had the same immunity from prosecution, no?