by Deb Cupples | I saw it on C-Span's live streaming of the session, and the vote is over, so I can't link to it. The U.S. House just passed the FISA bill by 293 - 128 votes, meaning a whole lot of Democrats voted for the bill. As discussed here earlier, the FISA bill was not a compromise.
The bill will give the Bush Administration and law-breaking telecommunications companies exactly what they wanted: 1) broader ability to tap Americans' phone calls and emails and 2) retroactive immunity for telecoms that had broken the law while helping the Administration's domestic-surveillance programs.
The upshot: lawsuits against law-breaking telecoms will likely be dropped and we taxpayers will likely never see evidence of just how egregiously the Bush Administration (and its allies in the telecom industry) had broken our nation's laws.
Next, the Senate will vote on the bill.
There's talk that Reid is going to try to strip the telecom immunity out of the bill before the vote. But it seems impossible that they will get this since Lieberman and Rockefeller, and presumably several others, won't vote for that. They would need to get folks like Specter or Hagel or Snowe to cross over, while keeping basically every Democrat. Not gonna happen.
At this point the only real hope is a filibuster, which is ridiculous because the House should have crushed this.
Posted by: Adam | June 20, 2008 at 05:05 PM
Adam,
Yes, the House Dems should have crushed it -- and Obama should have publicly spoken out before the House voted.
Obama also should not have spoken for FISA (after the House's vote). His claims that he will get rid of Telecom Amnesty is flat BS: no way that a president can single handedly do that.
He would need to persuade hundreds of Dem House members to change their minds -- which doesn't seem likely, given that they were the ones who passed the bill today.
Admittedly, I'm surprised by Obama's pro-FISA statement.
I figured he'd speak against it when it didn't matter (after the House vote) so he could get credit with progressives for speaking against it but without actually promoting opposition to the bill.
I suppose that Obama figures he doesn't need progressives any more. I guess we'll see in November.
Posted by: Deb | June 20, 2008 at 07:11 PM
I'm voting for McCain. Better the devil you know then the devil you don't or the devil that lies to you, right in your face.
Obama is a real...well you know.
Posted by: danny | June 21, 2008 at 01:51 PM