Posted by D. Cupples | As I've said before, it's only natural that President Bush craves retroactive immunity for telecom companies that violated laws while helping his Administration tap Americans' phone calls and emails: when telecoms get sued, their records get subpoenaed -- records likely doubling as evidence of Administration officials' crimes. Three things to remember:
1) Evidence suggests that the domestic spying program was in the works before 9/11;
2) Some telecom lawyers expressed doubts about the legality of the Bush Administration's wiretapping programs (e.g., Qwest Communications refused to participate); and
3) One telecom giant had no problem saying "No" to the government's wiretapping requests when the FBI forgot to pay its bills.
Today, Glenn Greenwald reports:
"The Senate today -- led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus -- will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans....
"It's worth taking a step back and recalling that all of this is the result of the December, 2005 story by the New York Times which first reported that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans for many years without warrants of any kind. All sorts of "controversy" erupted from that story. Democrats everywhere expressed dramatic, unbridled outrage, vowing that this would not stand.
"James Risen and Eric Lichtblau were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for exposing this serious lawbreaking. All sorts of Committees were formed, papers written, speeches given, conferences convened, and editorials published to denounce this extreme abuse of presidential power. This was illegality and corruption at the highest level of government, on the grandest scale, and of the most transparent strain." (Salon via Memeorandum)
I don't know if it's too late to email your state's senators, but it couldn't hurt to try. You can find email addresses here.
Updates (courtesy of Glenn Greenwald):
I. The Dodd/Feingold amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill just failed by a whopping vote of 31-67 -- 20 votes shy of the 50 needed for a passage. A total of 18 Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for immunity: Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln. Obama voted against immunity, and Hillary Clinton was the only Senator not voting. Thus, the breakdown on the vote was similar to what it always is:
Democrats -- 31-18
Republicans -- 0-49
II. "FDL has a petition, jointly sponsored by me, directed at House members, demanding that they reject this lawless, authoritarian Senate bill and defend their own, previously passed bill (the RESTORE Act). I encourage everyone to sign it. You can do so here."
Related BN-Politics Posts:
* Industry-Connected Dems Push for Telecom Amnesty
* Domestic Spying Started Before 9/11 & Money Changed Hands
* U.S. Intel Chief Made False Statements re: Domestic Spying
Thanks for helping to get this petition going.
Posted by: Charles | February 12, 2008 at 07:36 PM
Charles! How are you? FDL and Greenwald got the petition going: I just hope that it will be spread far and wide (and signed).
Posted by: D. Cupples | February 13, 2008 at 05:02 PM