On Fri, 2008-06-27 at 13:00 -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> BERKELEY, CA—Last week, on June 20, the House of Representatives
> approved a compromise bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence
> Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). The bill sets new electronic
> surveillance rules that effectively shield telecommunications
> companies from lawsuits resulting from the government's warrantless
> eavesdropping on phone calls and viewing of emails of private citizens
> in the U.S. Approximately 40 lawsuits have been filed with potential
> damages totaling in the billions of dollars.
> 
> On March 14 of this year the House passed an amendment that rejected
> retroactive immunity for phone carriers who helped the National
> Security Agency carry out the illegal wiretapping program without
> proper warrants. Ninety-four House Democrats voted in favor of this
> measure--rejecting immunity--on March 14, then 'changed' to vote in
> favor of the June 20 House bill--approving immunity.
> 
> "Why did these ninety-four House members have a change of heart?"
> asked Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, "Their
> constituents deserve answers."
> 
>  http://www.maplight.org/FISA_June08
----
the contributions clearly aren't the issue ($2000 for both Giffords and
Mitchell)

The problem is the Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate
don't have the backbone to just say no. They are the ones who
capitulated.

It doesn't get better because Barack Obama - who promised to help block
the legislation to the point of helping to filibuster any notion of
immunity for telecoms has been tossed aside.

But this is a Linux message base and this is entirely off topic.

Craig

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