After James Risen and Eric Lichtblau exposed the existence of the illegal wiretapping done by telecommunications companies for the Bush administration (see The New York Times), Congress went nuts. Everyone claimed that this wouldn't stand. They were going to do something about it. Well, Lichtblau and Risen's article appeared on June 23, 2006 and now they finally are doing something about it. They're making what was done legal. Yeah. I'm not kidding. I'm outraged and sickened. If anyone had still doubted that this was the Corporate States of America, this should have clinched it. The corporations are in control and now we're making everything they do legal. Oh, my God.
 
The House version of the bill (H.R. 3773, known as the Restore Act), has already passed and has no retroactive immunity for telecom companies, but the Senate version (S. 2248) does. The Senate version was introduced by John D. Rockefeller (D, WV). The Center for Democracy & Technology has a chart comparing the 2 bills. The vote on Tuesday was for an Amendment proposed by Democratic Senators Chris Dodd (CT) and Russ Feingold (WI) that would strip the immunity out of the bill. The vote earlier today was for cloture, to stop the debate on the Amendment. The final vote was 31-67. 31 people voted "nay," in order to get a vote on the amendment. All the Republicans voted "yea," that is, for cloture. Who were the Democrats that voted with them? Here's the list: Baucus (MT), Bayh (IN), Carper (DE), Casey (PA), Conrad (ND), Feinstein (CA), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln (AR), McCaskill (MO), Mikulski (MD), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO), Webb (VA), and Whitehouse (RI). Hillary Clinton didn't vote, although she was in Washington D.C. at the time. Barak Obama voted "nay." He voted against cloture, for the continuation of the debate.
 
The full bill then went to the Senate floor where it passed by a vote of 68-29. Here's the list. Neither Clinton nor Obama were there for this vote. The bill now goes to a conference committee to work out the differences. What do you want to bet the telecoms get their immunity?
 
The Wonk