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