Slashdot Mirror
Senate Passes Telecom Immunity Bill
zehnra writes "The U.S. Senate this afternoon passed the FISA Amendments Act, broadly expanding the president's warrantless surveillance authority and unconstitutionally granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president's illegal domestic wiretapping program. The House of Representatives passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law shortly." The New York Times has a story, as does the Associated Press (carried here by Yahoo!). Reader Guppy points out the roll call for the vote.
Oh, don't worry. They'll gladly show the judge the corpse.
This guy's the limit!
I wrote my senators. Fat lot of good that shit does.
You probably forgot to put a few $100 bills in the envelopes.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
The Democratic Socialist Republic of Massachusetts voted NAY/Abstain on this. I nearly had a heart attack.
Now the government has the tools it needs to protect us. Don't you feel more protected? I feel more protected!
My freedoms are so protected too. Freedom to write things like:
"I wish each member of the Bush administration was dipped in a vat full of Poison Oak sap, and that each senator and representative was made to take turns scratching the oozing blisters on their private parts."
Wow, you said something against Obama. The moderation rollercoaster will be fun to see.
But it also had some excellent usage of guillotines on people who had betrayed their countrymen.
McCain abstained, which I guess makes him a "moderate" on the issue of screwing us over at every opportunity.
Tired of choosing the lesser of two evils? Vote Cthulhu in '08! No more years!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If everyone did that, we'd probably elect Oprah.
Which, all things considered, I'm sure would be a big improvement.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Unfortunately I don't think I can carry a guillotine on to a plane anymore, especially not one headed to Washington.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Sure glad i'm european
Yes, because regimes that violate civil liberties have never come to power in Europe.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So does this now mean that my phone bill rates/fees be be lowered?
You know..., because of all the lawsuit and legal counsel *savings* the telecoms have now that they cannot be sued ala immunity ex post facto...?
does that mean we'd all get free cars?
I should be using my vacation time to go campaign for him (as I have been planning) when he just reversed himself on a major promise to his supporters?
Obama will say "green" a lot in the next few weeks, babble about "corporations", promise "free" healthcare and you'll be right back in line.
No worries.
I wish I could vote "None of the above." in elections. Today is really one of them, which sadly seems more like every day.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Why do you want President Obama's administration to have less authority than President Bush?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I wouldnt mind seeing how the remaining elements of the Bush apparatus react when they're being tapped. This includes the activist judges Roberts and Alito, the entirety of Fox News, certain "conservative" bloggers(Pajamas Media and Club for Growth come to mind), the entirety of talk radio, lobbyists of all influences, union busting/H1B agencies, and those whose business is Wall Street(or similar). It is implied that Congress will be tapped.
For full effect, wait until Bush leaves office, then start the tapping. Collect enough for a year, then release to the non-Fox media at the first major economic crisis/election cycle.
Then break out the popcorn and watch the amusement.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So there was a heated debate weather the wiretapping was legal or not... it was regularly claimed to be illegal... now congress passed a bill clairfying that it's legal... when they pass a law saying you can do it, it's legal, no matter how much you may dislike it. So my real question is can we stop calling it the "illegal domestic wiretapping program"?
The collectors value of this stuff is going to go though the roof.
I ran into a *lot* of people that were on the *far* side of weird every time I went there.
Any beach in Europe will have 1/4th of the women going topless. And *nobody* *cares*
Europeans don't like boobs, and you're calling us weird??
nahhh look at the money trail. When you look at exactly HOW MUCH money goes into lobbying. Then how much goes into donations, how much goes into favours its worrisome. A few years back I used to hang out in some shady corners of the internet so I got a lot more of this sort of information. Even if not all of congress is corrupt I can assure you at least 80 have been bribed whether they returned the favour or not.
So it must be true!
Fine print: I work in internet advertising.