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Dodd Lobbies Colleagues to Toss FISA Immunities
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Jun 11, 2008 09:39pm |
| Category | Blog Entry |
| News Date | Jun 10, 2008 04:45pm |
| Description | Sen. Chris Dodd sent a letter out today, again picking a fight over whether telecommunications companies that helped the government spy on U.S. citizens should be protected from lawsuits from those citizens. The letter, signed by Dodd and Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, asked congressional leaders to see things their way and keep immunity for those companies out of the pending updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
When he was fresh off his unsuccessful presidential bid, Dodd had weighed immediately into the fight over "retroactive immunity," but his side was stomped in the Senate vote, which overwhelmingly passed the FISA bill. The House, though, said No to immunity -- leaving Dodd championing the version created by the chamber he doesn't belong to.
(As if getting in on the top-secret world of spycraft, the House even had a rare closed session on this topic back in March.)
Dodd and Feingold's letter specifically criticises a compromise offered by Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri that the letter says is not a real compromise, because it seems to put the immunity question up to an independent court, but it really still leaves the telecommunications companies a sort of automatic immunity. |
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