CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: ANCAPS to Senate: You filthy, evil, rights violators! Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:00 pm | |
| Senate OKs immunity for telecoms in intelligence bill
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate voted Tuesday to give immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the federal government eavesdrop on suspected terrorists after the September 11 attacks.
An attempt to remove language granting retroactive immunity from the intelligence bill failed by a 31-67 vote.
A final vote is expected late Tuesday on legislation meant to update the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the law that regulates the intelligence community's surveillance practices.
Lawmakers are facing a tight deadline to complete voting on the bill. A temporary update to FISA expires at the end of the week.
The temporary bill allows the intelligence agencies to monitor foreign-to-foreign communications involving suspected terrorists without a warrant even if they come through telecommunication switches in the United States.
Civil rights advocates, including the group Democracy for America, counter that immunity is a "get out of jail free card" for what they call "illegal spying on Americans."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/12/fisa.senate/ _________________ Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband “The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner "Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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