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Senate Votes Down 3rd Amendment on Telecom Immunity

This one was an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Ben Cardin (D-MD). It went down 41-57.

The amendment was another attempt at compromise over retroactive immunity for the telecoms. Under the amendment, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would have reviewed the telecoms' participation in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program to determine whether that participation "complied with the legal requirements of FISA or was legal or undertaken in good faith with an objectively reasonable belief that such assistance was lawful." If the court found that the companies should have known that what they were participating in was illegal, the pending lawsuits against the telecoms would have been allowed to continue.

Once again, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), unwilling to compromise, voted nay along with a number of senators who'd also voted down the attempt to strip retroactive immunity from the bill, Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) among them.

Update: Here's the final tally.


5 Comments

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Remind me again why I should work to elect Dems instead of Repubs?
I'm really getting wound up on this vote and I need someone to perform intervention.
I say it's time to start the "I'm not a corporate whore" party.
Platform plank #1 Repeal corporate personhood.

Platform plank #2 Imprison any politician who accepts corporate money.

Platform plank #3 Give government back to the people.

AAAHHH!!!! I'm so angry right now!!!
How could they?? Shameless @#$%^&*!

just to add
Obama voted for it
Clinton didn't vote

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Dubya's approval rating = 27%

Congress' approval rating = 11% and falling fast to zero.

Reckon they ever wonder why they're more despised than old dipstick? He may be terrible but at least he's got a backbone. Losers.

well the numbers are like that since the democrats hate the republicans in congress and vice versa. With bush he always has that 25 percent that will support him forever.

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Well, this amendment was just lame. The telecoms don't have attorneys who advise them on everything they do? Is it even a question that they knew it was illegal?

Qwest knew. Will AT&T and Verizon admit that Qwest is smarter than they are?

No, the bad vote was on the good provision: No retroactive immunity.

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