House Democrats Show Some Backbone

On Friday, the House of Representatives passed a new version of the Federal Intelligence Surviellance Act, but it wasn't the version that Bush and the Republicans wanted. They wanted retroactive immunity for the telecom companies, but this time the Democrats stood up to them and refused to do it. The vote was 213-197 to deny the immunity.

After 9/11, Bush talked some of the telecommunications companies into breaking the law by helping the government snoop on American citizens without a search warrant as constitutionally required. Now, in an effort to determine the full scope of the unconstitutional surviellance, about 40 different lawsuits have been filed against the telecoms. They are currently pending in a California court.

Bush and the Republicans have been saying the retroactive immunity was neccessary to protect America in the future, because the telecoms would not cooperate. Texas Rep. Lamar Smith mouths the party line when he says, "We cannot conduct foreign surveillance without them. But if we continue to subject them to billion-dollar lawsuits, we risk losing their cooperation in the future."

But that's a BIG FAT LIE! All they have to do is get a search warrant (which they can do secretly) and the telecoms cannot refuse to help. What they'll lose is the ability to talk the telecoms into breaking the law and violating the constitution in the future.

They'll also lose the ability to hide the scope of their illegal activities in the past. A retroactive immunity would have allowed the Bush administration to hide their past crimes and keep Americans from finding out just how pervasive the past illegal surveillance had been.

That's what all of this has been about. It has nothing to do with protecting America from terrorists. That can be done with court-ordered search warrants. It is all about the Bush administration trying to hide its past crimes.

Finally, the congressional Democrats have stood up to Bush. They not only denied the retroactive immunity, but also created a bipartisan panel to examine the administration's warrantless wiretapping. Good -- it's about time this mess was exposed to the light of day.

I am proud of the House Democrats. They have finally stood up for the Constitution, and voted to protect the rights of American citizens. They have also given Bush a workable bill. I hope they don't let the Senate or Bush pressure them into changing it.