Committee Delays Consideration of Telecom Immunity

[Hissyspit]

Source: Raw Story

Committee delays consideration of telecom immunity
Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday November 8, 2007

The Senate Judiciary Committee is delaying consideration of a controversial proposal to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated a warrantless wiretapping program. A committee aide tells RAW STORY it is "likely" the panel will produce legislation that differs from an Intelligence Committee bill that includes telecom immunity, although it is not clear that such differences would include eliminating telecom immunity. Senators are still unsure whether they have enough votes to strike that particular provison.

The delay comes as civil liberties groups and grassroots activists have urged the Democratic Congress not to cede to President Bush's demands that the well-connected industry be spared from lawsuits alleging the illegally violated customers privacy rights.

- snip -

Several senators -- including most of the committee's Democrats and its ranking Republican -- have expressed reservations about the proposal to invalidate the court cases, which privacy advocates say are the only way to determine the Constitutionality of Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans.

National Journal's CongressDaily, a subscription-only newsletter, reports that a key Democrat on the committee may now be wavering in her support for immunity: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, said she is re-evaluating her support for retroactive legal immunity. She voted to approve it as part of the Intelligence Committee bill. 'I did support (immunity) in the intel bill and I'm giving it further thought,' she said. (Republican Sen. Arlen)Specter said he does not know if there will be enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to strip the immunity provision."

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Committee_delays_consideration_telecom_immunity_1108.html

[LynzM]

1. Email Feinstein

http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe

Let her know that retroactive immunity is unconstitutional and we don't support it.

From Chris Dodd's website: http://chrisdodd.com/whistleblower

Why Retroactive Immunity Matters:
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

My name is Mark Klein. I used to be an AT&T technician for 22 years.

(Former AT&T Technician Mark Klein Speaks Out on Retroactive Immunity and Domestic Surveillance)

"What I figured out when I got there is that they were copying everything flowing across the internet cables, the major internet links between AT&T's network and other companies' networks."

"It struck me at the time that this was a massively unconstitutional, illegal operation."

"It affects not only AT&T's customers, but everybody because these links went to places link Sprint, Qwest, a whole bunch of other companies."

"And so they're basically tapping into the entire internet."

(But isn't the government only monitoring suspected terrorists and not ordinary Americans?)

"To perform what they say they want to do, which is look at international traffic, none of this makes any sense. These installations only make sense if they're doing a huge, massive domestic dragnet on everybody in the United States."

(Shouldn't the telecoms trust that the Bush administration's requests are legal?)

"These companies know very well what's legal and illegal. They've been dealing with this for decades. And it's a fact that Qwest refused the NSA's approaches because they didn't have, they weren't shown any legal justification for it. And they did the right thing and said, "no." "

"What I'm here for is it looked like a few weeks ago that the Senate bill which passed the Intelligence Committee would give immunity to the telecom companies and that would probably put an end to the lawsuits."

(The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently reviewing retroactive immunity)

"So I came here to lobby against giving immunity to the telecom companies. Let the court cases proceed and Congress should not interfere in that."

(Tell the Senate to oppose telecom immunity http://chrisdodd.com/immunity)

Edited to add the text of my note to Feinstein:

Senator Feinstein,
I read today that you are considering removing your support for retroactive immunity for the telecom companies. I'm writing to urge, to beg and plead for you to please do so. Retroactive immunity is illegal and unconstitutional, and if there is nothing to be hidden, then investigations should proceed without fear. If there *is* something to be hidden, all the more reason why investigations should proceed as soon as possible.

Please do the right thing, the thing that follows the rule of law and doesn't provide an out for these corporations that are blindly following Bush's model.

Thank you,
-Lindsay Morahn