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White House Wins On Spying, Telecom Immunity

EllisDees sends in a Washington Post report that Senate Republicans have outmaneuvered Democrats, who withdrew a more stringent version of legislation to control the government's domestic surveillance program. The legislation that will go forward includes a grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program.

2 of 658 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bush Win = Constitutional Loss by gardyloo · · Score: 1, Troll

    If it's not in the Constitution, the federal government's not allowed to do it, fancy that. It's been a long time since I studied the Constitution of the United States, but I do NOT read the 10th Amendment as saying that.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
  2. Re:ex post facto by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 0, Troll

    Which would work so well, since airpower is the deciding factor in the current Iraq campaigns... oh, wait...

    It all depends on how it is used. Air Force was definitely the decisive factor in completely eviscerating Saddam's army. In a civil war it would have a decisive role in reducing the other side to the status of militia/partisan/insurgent style resistance. What would happen past that point is up for debate. Note however that all of the current (barely effective) constraints on civilian casualties would likely be moot in a civil war where one side is on a "Mission from God" and has an ability to effect large scale aerial bombardment.