Update: FISA Expansion Passes
Telecom Immunity Remedy Fails

by addiestan, The Media Consortium: Wed., Jul 9, 2008
Filed under: Congressional Oversight

Update: The Senate has passed, by a margin of 69-28, the Protect America Act, the bill that expands the reach of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to protect telephone and internet service providers from legal liability when they fork over to the government private information about who you’re calling or emailing outside of the U.S. The bill also expands the range of allowable data-mining by government spymasters.

Though the bill was termed a “bipartisan compromise,” my colleague Brian Beutler explained:

The word “bipartisan” is technically indisputable. The word “compromise”, by contrast, is a total farce.

Attempts in the Senate to retool the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this week featured a two-day debate on an amendment sponsored by Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., that would have stripped legislation for the Protect America Act of immunity for telephone and internet providers who complied with government requests for information on consumers’ calls and e-mails in violation of privacy law. That amendment just failed, 32-66.

(My colleague, Brian Beutler, who usually covers intelligence matters, is on leave this week. Last week, he interviewed Feingold about FISA.)

In one of the last speeches before the vote, Dodd forcefully argued against the “false dichotomy” put forward by his amendment’s opponents between “security and civil liberties.” Dodd added, “It’s a false dichotomy. Previous generations have made it; we should not.”

Both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton voted for the Dodd-Feingold amendment. (Obama, to much consternation, has indicated that he will vote for the Protect America Act even without the telecom immunity provisions, because of compromises made in other areas of the bill.)

Two senators who are often talked up as potential veep candidates on the Obama ticket — Jim Webb of Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri — voted against the amendment. In other words, they voted to protect the telecoms. (Note: Webb yesterday seemed to take himself out of the contest for running-mate.)

Other Democrats voting against the amendment were Barbara Mikulski, Md.; Jay Rockefeller, W.V.; Blanche Lincoln, (Ark.); Mary Landrieu, La., and Dianne Feinstein, Calif.

Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican whom Republicans love to hate, after voting against Dodd-Feingold, offered his own, more narrowly drawn, amendment, which also failed, 37-61.