Senator Slaps Down FISA Telecom Immunity

cleetus writes "Today Senator Chris Dodd decided to put a hold on the FISA bill, one of the provisions of which would have granted immunity to any telecom which, if found to have acted in good faith, violated U.S. laws in turning over customer data to the government. According to TPM Election Central, "By doing this, Dodd can effectively hold up the telecom immunity bill, because bills are supposed to have unanimous consent in the Senate before going forward. One Senator can make it very difficult to bring a bill to the floor by objecting to allowing it to go to a vote." This throws a fairly big roadblock in front of this bill, covered by Slashdot earlier today."

Comments

Re:Proxy war...

[DreamingReal]

Bullshit. Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was able to stop counting his money long enough to obey the law. Nacchio was the only one who was fucked sideways by our government when they had a shitfit over his refusal to allow illegal wiretapping and eliminated Qwest from the running for a bunch of government contracts. Oh yeah, then they prosecuted him for insider trading when he sold a bunch of stock figuring that the contracts would help Qwest's financial woes.

The Telcos who assisted the government? Those motherfuckers get what they deserve and I hope the forthcoming class-action lawsuits bankrupt every last one of them. If we were a just society, we would send the executives and the Board of Directors from each company to Gitmo and let them rot in Enemy Combatant limbo. If pissing on the Constitution isn't the terrorist behavior of an American insurgent, then I don't know what is.

Dodd vows filibuster

[sdkramer]

I just got an email from the Dodd campaign (apparently from commenting on his blog about the hold).

"Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd's intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies.
That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but Chris Dodd has pledged to stop this horrible bill any way he can.
So if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster."

I don't know how well that's going to go, my understanding is that he'd probably pretty easily get a cloture vote to shut him down, but at least he's doing something.

GO DODD!
GO SOX! :)