Telecom Immunity Passes Senate

The Senate finally passed an update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that includes immunity for telecommunications companies that aided government eavesdropping on American citizens. The resolution comes after a long struggle that featured internal party battles, threats of filibusters and presidential vetoes and a sustained online campaign by progressive blogs.

The battle moves to the House of Representatives, where the current version of the legislation does not include immunity. If the House version passes without immunity, the issue will be determined in reconciliation negotiations before it is sent to President Bush. Bush has vowed to veto any surveillance bill that does not include immunity for the telecoms.The Senate voted 31 to 67 against the Dodd/Feingold amendment, which would have stripped retroactive immunity. A flurry of other amendments also did not pass. Daily Kos sums those up here and here.

Barack Obama and John McCain were on hand, voting against and for the renewal respectively. Hillary Clinton was not in attendance.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies so far by citizens claiming they were wiretapped illegally.

Daily Kos blogger Kagro X explains that one of the votes taken will allow the President to virtually bypass the law at will.

Exclusivity -- the purpose of the amendment that "failed" -- meant simply this: that the law they were passing was the law, and it was the governing authority for how surveillance could be conducted in America.

The Senate just rejected it, so that means that they're passing a law, but if a president decides later on that he thinks there's really some other controlling authority besides the law, that's OK.

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Talk Left has a list of Democrats who voted against the Dodd/Feingold amendment.

Michelle Malkin explains why she's glad that the Senate voted for telecom immunity. Here's a hint, it's because the liberal netroots are "despondent".