Senate votes to immunize telecoms over domestic spying

The United States Senate today voted to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits over their role in the government's warrantless wiretapping activities. Snip from NYT story:

After nearly two months of stops and starts, the Senate rejected by a vote of 31 to 67 a move to strip away a grant of retroactive legal immunity for the companies.
President Bush has promised to veto any new surveillance bill that does not protect the companies that helped the government in its warrantless wiretapping program, arguing that it is essential if the private sector is to give the government the help it needs.
About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies by people alleging violations of wiretapping and privacy laws.
The Senate also rejected two amendments that sought to water down the immunity provision.

Link.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Pieps

Seriously folks, if your senators voted “Nay,” put the screws to them. Make it clear that your right to privacy is not a negotiable issue. It is an election year, after all.
Bazilisk

TAKUAN: India or China, not sure which.

And shit. This sucks.
Will

Alright- we’ve got a list:

Edward E. Whitacre Jr. (Former CEO, AT&T)
Randall L. Stephenson (Current CEO, AT&T)
Ivan Seidenberg (CEO, Verizon)

Every Republican member of the Senate, plus these guys-

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Webb (D-VA)
Clinton (D-NY)

These proud men and women have sacrificed our privacy on the altar of something (I honestly don’t know what… Security? Money?)

In any case, since they’ve given away all American’s rights, I think they should be the first ones to experience the loss of such rights. I encourage anyone with access to please report on the heinous and embarassing details of these individual’s lives. Do they have hemroids? How’s their love life (what kind of porn do they like)? What’s happening with the fam’? What’s in their medicine cabinet? Why don’t we dig up old SAT scores?

Of course, scatological and sexual details are the best, but anything gossipy will work fine. There is nothing to be done with these people but to shame them and shame them again (they’re politicians, so it won’t stick the first time). They have done a scandalous thing, and they need to be exposed to ridicule. It would be far less than what they have exposed us to.
Takuan

Aw, what are ya worried about? You’ll have a shooting war with Iran going before long anyway. Who cares about a little privacy when gas will be $10 a quart and half of you will be out of work anyways.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
morcheeba

Here’s the voting record: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00015

Statement of Purpose: To strike the provisions providing immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance provided to the Government.

Clinton (D-NY), Not Voting
McCain (R-AZ), Nay
Obama (D-IL), Yea
Moon

Is it time to impeach Bush NOW?
Blackbird

Takuan…actually…Canada will be swinging down to take over. Don’t worry, it’ll be painless. We’ll bring beer!

Plus, we’ve been quietly sitting here watching what’s been going on…and were itchin’ to get goin’!
Jeff

Some of us might think that fighting a war with the best intelligence in hand would make things better for us in the long run. Is this logic train on track or not? The pendulum always swings.
Bobdotcom

Your Senate at work: putting the comfort of telecom corporations over and above the privacy of its own citizens.
Nick Shogun

Damn you, Obama. You think he’d be smart enough not to vote in the middle of an election.
hyperkine

This is ex post facto style bullshit.
Takuan

but, but..

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jHQ7Prwh7Gc
KurtMac

@#4 NICK SHOGUN: Unless I’m misinterpreting sarcasm, Obama actually voted against immunity for telecoms. Those who voted Nay are in favor or providing immunity.
jacuzzisuites

weak

and #7 is correct
Falcon_Seven

I’ve wanted to kick the ‘King Kameamea Biatch’ Feinstein in the face for so many years now. But you people keep votin’ her back into office…
spectre
Don’t complain about it here, if your senator voted against this, GO TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK. I just told Feinstein online and I’m sending a letter tonight.

These Democrats crossed party lines to support immunity for the telco’s (they voted ‘nay’). If you don’t bother to say anything about it, then they will keep winning and we will be living in a police state shortly…
- Bayh (D-IN)
- Carper (D-DE)
- Conrad (D-ND)
- Feinstein (D-CA)
- Inouye (D-HI)
- Johnson (D-SD)
- Kohl (D-WI)
- Landrieu (D-LA)
- Lincoln (D-AR)
- Lieberman (ID-CT)
- McCaskill (D-MO)
- Mikulski (D-MD)
- Nelson (D-FL)
- Nelson (D-NE)
- Pryor (D-AR)
- Rockefeller (D-WV)
- Salazar (D-CO)
- Stabenow (D-MI)
- Webb (D-VA)
- Clinton (D-NY) {not voting helps the majority}
ridl

Bill of Rights, RIP. Oh well, at least the long, slow sickness has finally ended. We can mourn now.

So sad. I need a nap.

And Spectre, we’ve been living in a police state for at least 60 years. I don’t know where you’ve been.
badger510

This was sent to me on 1/22/08:

Dear Mr. Ross:

Thank you for writing regarding the Bush Administration’s request for legislation that would provide immunity for telecommunications companies that are alleged to have provided assistance to the National Security Agency after September 11, 2001. I appreciate your thoughts on this topic, and welcome the opportunity to respond.

The legislation to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) was debated in the Senate on December 17, 2007, but further action is postponed until January. That legislation, which was written by the Senate Intelligence Committee and approved by a vote of 13-2, would provide immunity for such companies if they were specifically requested or directed to provide assistance to the government.

The Intelligence Committee’s report on the bill includes declassified text stating that the Executive branch provided letters to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. These letters all directed or requested assistance and noted that the assistance was authorized by the President and was legal. The Committee’s report can be found at http://intelligence.senate.gov/071025/report.pdf.

I introduced an amendment on the Senate floor that would limit this grant of immunity. Under my amendment, cases against the telecommunications companies would go to the FISA Court for judicial review. The Court would only provide immunity if it finds that the alleged assistance was not provided, that assistance met legal requirements, or that a company had a good faith, reasonable belief that assistance was legal.

I believe that this approach strikes the correct balance: it maintains court review and a judicial determination of whether companies provided assistance that they should have known violated the law.

I have also filed an amendment to restore FISA’s exclusivity, to ensure that no surveillance program can proceed outside the law in the way that the Terrorist Surveillance Program did for more than five years.

Rest assured that I will make every effort to ensure that new FISA legislation will protect the privacy rights of all Americans without restricting the intelligence community’s ability to protect us from attack.

Again, thank you for writing. I hope that you will continue to write on matters of importance to you. Best regards.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ENewsletterSignup.Signup.
noen

America is now a police state. If the US government wants to broaden the illegal surveillance and target American citizens, the government can merely establish a “foreign presence”, then communicate with the US person in the United States.

- Who says the “foreign target” is a real target, and not something under the US government control, as a ruse?

- What prevents the US government from playing the role of a “foreign target”? Nothing.

- How many US government-controlled “Foreign targets” need to be individually identified; or can a “foreign target” simultaneously communicate with millions of American citizens, thereby bypassing the warrant requirement? Infinite.

- Could a “foreign target” be something that is a switching box, and all foreign targets “connected with that foreign target” expose all US communications through that box to be subject to monitoring without a warrant? Yes.

Expect things to start moving very fast. Get out if you can.
zuzu

So, according to those in power:

Amnesty for immigrants who want to work to make a better life for their families: BAD

Amnesty for telecommunications companies eavesdropping on millions of private conversations: GOOD

If not crime and the rule of law… gee, what could all of the “no amnesty for immigrants” rhetoric really be about, hmmm???
abb3w

So much for the hopes of the people obtaining Justice within the Rule of Law
MrsBug

I sent my Senator (Stabenow, D-MI) an email about this issue back in mid-January and got this email back:
——
Thank you for contacting me regarding warrantless wiretapping and domestic surveillance programs by the National Security Agency (NSA). I share your deep frustration about these and other actions by the Bush Administration.

Last August, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) introduced legislation that endorsed the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The bill passed just two days after it was introduced without the necessary hearings and debate needed to ensure the civil liberties of Americans were protected. I voted against this bill because I have grave concerns about this program and its oversight.

The McConnell bill will expire in a few weeks. I believe Congress has a responsibility to protect the American people, but like you, I understand that some of these measures may threaten certain civil liberties. In the war on terrorism, it is vital to ensure that we do not sacrifice the very liberties we are fighting to protect.

Telecommunication companies that cooperated with the NSA program are now seeking immunity from lawsuits related to their involvement in the program. Currently this legislation is pending in the Senate. I will keep your strong views in mind as this and other related legislation come before me for a vote.

——-

After seeing her vote, I sent this in reply:

You voted NAY! How could you!? Giving Telecomms immunity is another knife in the back of the American people by an Administration that has already prostituted our Constitution. Wiretapping without a warrant is ILLEGAL!!

I am extremely disappointed in your vote. What they did was illegal, end of story.
——
Not very professional or whatever, but this whole issue is so black-and-white to me that it is infuriating!
Takuan

that bloody Paglia’s gone too far!:
“Who needs a weird old coot with a short fuse in the White House?”

I’m not even running!
Cowicide

For those of you worried that we might become a police state. You can stop worrying, we are ALREADY a police state.

Now, go eat your mush.
vaporlock

Clinton (D-NY), Not Voting
McCain (R-AZ), Nay

Clinton confirmed why I would never vote for her. McCain is the political hack he has always been. The Senate should be ashamed.
sanfransardine

Anyone want to get together a mob of drag Feinsteins to hand out Eavesdropping Indulgences at the AT&T spy building at 611 Folsom Street in SF?

Anybody who figures out how to dress as AT&T and make out with DiFi gets extra points.
WordyGrrl

Forget that old “ban same-sex marriage” amendment (which was mostly used to rile up voters).

What we need is a constitutional amendment safeguarding our right to be left the hell alone.

That includes the right to be anonymous and post comments using a pseudonym.
Pieps

@#27: It’s called the 4th Amendment. The government just seems to be a bit illiterate right now.
s5

Interesting to see that Obama voted correctly, Clinton didn’t vote, and McCain voted for the wrong side. This basically sums up exactly how the three of them would behave if they won the presidency.
funeralpudding

The good thing about these clear-cut issues is it gives us a record of the names of the Republicans who have infiltrated the Democratic Party.

It is time to push our party back to the left. VOTE!
rollerskater

i love mccain more and more every day. he will be a much better Dark Lord than bush ever was.
Takuan

When America finally folds into complete overt fascism, who will invade and liberate with regime change?