Politics: FISA Passes, No Immunity

Wow. How much good news can I take before my head explodes? I'm a little under the weather today, so maybe this will keep me from getting sick before a long plane journey.

At any rate, Raw Story tells us that the House of Representatives passed the FISA bill requiring judicial oversight (yay! No more warrantless wiretaps! We hope.) and told the telcos that they've squeezed enough out of the ratepayers to afford their own goddamned lawyers. Yes!

On a 224-192 vote, largely along party lines, the House adopted its proposal to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The measure, known as the RESTORE Act, would replace a temporary FISA update approved in August.

The bill does not include a provision to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that the Bush administration has demanded and it restores the role of the FISA court in approving surveillance methods used by the National Security Agency that could ensnare Americans.

In other news, the Senate is debating the bill currently, and their bill does grant immunity to the telcos, grrr. The only Senator who seems to ever stand up for the people, Russ Feingold, is planning to strip the telcos' immunity, but I'm sure Dianne "Brought My Own Lube, George" FeinSTAIN and Joe "Should I Bend Over And Spread 'Em Now, George?" LIEberwhore will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the people's rights get trampled in the rush to give the telcos whatever they fucking want. God I hate those two losers.

The vote was entirely along party lines, and man, am I glad we put more Democrats into office in 2006! Just looking back at the preceding six years and the plethora of civil rights abuses, corruption, scandal, rubberstamping - EESH!

Raw Story is working on the story right now, so pop by to toss them some dosh and catch the latest details.

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