Dems opens door for immunity in spy bill

Source: AP/TPM

A top Democratic leader opened the door Tuesday to granting U.S. telecommunications companies retroactive legal immunity for helping the government conduct electronic surveillance without court orders, but said the Bush administration must first detail what those companies did.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said providing the immunity will likely be the price of getting President Bush to sign into law new legislation extending the government's surveillance authority. About 40 pending lawsuits name telecommunications companies for alleged violations of wiretapping laws. Democrats introduced a draft version of the new law Tuesday _ without the immunity language.

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The Bush administration agreed on Oct. 5 to "assemble" that information by Oct. 22 _ after the bill is supposed to be voted on by Congress _ but warned that many of the requested documents may be withheld.






Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/10/dems_opens_door_for_immunity_i.php

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As if there was ever any doubt.

House Judiciary Rejects Telecom Immunity


The House Judiciary Committee has voted 21-14 to reject Bush's demand for retroactively protecting telecommunications companies from lawsuits for participating in warrantless wiretapping.

The proposed legislation expands court supervision of the U.S. foreign eavesdropping program and adds new measures to protect the civil liberties of Americans who may be caught up in the surveillance of suspected terrorists.

"The legislation before us today seeks to once again strike the appropriate balance between needed government authority and our precious rights and liberties," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2014463

"providing the immunity will likely be the price of getting President Bush to sign into law new legislation extending the government's surveillance authority."

So that's the price, huh. I guess no one really cares that the people paying the price are working class US citizens. :grr:

Just so we're clear:

The price of destroying more civil liberties is providing retroactive immunity to criminals who want to rid us of civil liberties.

Everyone clear on that. :grr:

support these policies, there is no other possible explanation.

helping Bush get more power to do these wiretaps. it's a frigging joke the Dems are just as bad as Bush on this

that go off on their own tangent... Why would you just go that route without a fight? This is so beyond me.. I just find myself shaking my head over these non leaders of ours.

Huh? We have to pay to get Bush to sign a law that diminishes the rights granted in the Constitution?

I am totally fed up with paying Bush to do something he shouldn't be doing in the first place!

They all crave the power that unfettered monitoring of the citizenry will get them.

At least you knew you were going to get screwed, didn't have to guess that you were going to like now...

Where is the backbone of these so called leaders anyway? I just don't believe what is being done in the name of Democrats.

Than the gutless Democrats who keep stabbing us in the back.

repug dictator with a dem dictator....they have been helping bush all the way...

they were granted. They were elected to balance Bush, not prolong his reign of terror over the country.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=106&subid=122&contentid=252063

http://www.davidsirota.com/index.php/big-money-vs-grassroots/


Who else is DLC???



The DLC helped build the "Unitary Executive", and helped stack the SCOTUS with RightWing whackjobs.
(SEE: Gang of 14)

The DLC candidate is next in line to inherit the "Unitary Executive".

Why would the DLC work to diminish the power of the "Unitary Executive" when this power will help themimplement the agenda of the Minority?

This is a travesty.

Diebold and ES&S? Virtually none of them can prove that they were legitimately elected. Most of our votes are now 'counted' on electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations--an outrageous circumstance that our 'Democratic' leaders are as much responsible for as the rats who designed it--Tom Delay and Bob Ney (with help from Christopher Dodd).

We have got to understand that a non-transparent vote 'counting' system was fast-tracked into place not only to steal the 2004 election but ALL FUTURE elections, including the recent 2006 Congressional elections. How do you suppose we have a situation in which 70% of the American people oppose the Iraq War and want it ended--a staggering, epochal anti-war majority--and this so-called 'Democratic' Congress does just the OPPOSITE--gives Bush/Cheney $100 billion MORE to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights, and agrees to an ESCALATION of the war, with 30,000 more troops? It is nuts. It is way wrong. And it is yet more evidence--if we needed any more--that our elections are FIXED, first by money, but now in way that we cannot overcome: 'TRADE SECRET' code!

I'll admit that the Congressional 'Democrats'' betrayal of the American people, and of American democracy, is breathtaking. Even I could not have imagined some of the things they've done--and I've been well-versed in the fascist coup of 'TRADE SECRET' vote 'counting' for some time. Still, people who descry these 'Democratic' betrayals need to wake up. You need to look into the "Help America Vote Act" ($3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle passed by the Anthrax Congress, with overwhelming 'Dem' support, in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution--Oct '02--and closely related to it.) You need to find out how completely insecure our election system has become, and the implications of that--that MOST of the 'Democrats' are ALSO being (s)elected by rightwing Bushite e-voting corporations. And even the good ones--the ones who would have been elected anyway, the ones with genuine, legitimate support--seem to be scared shitless by these corporations.

EXPECT more crap like this--our 'Democratic' Congress being, in essence, not much better than the Diebold I Congress before it, and rubber-stamping Bushite FASCISM. Nothing's going change until we restore transparent vote counting, which likely can only be done through a long, complex battle in state/local jurisdictions all over the country. Ordinary people still have some influence at the state/local level. We have NONE at the federal level.