According to the New York Times, the House is getting ready to pass a FISA bill that will give the telecommunications companies the retroactive immunity that Bush has been seeking. Yes, they're caving in. Representative Silvestre Reyes (D, TX), chair of the House Intelligence Committee which is drafting the new law, said Sunday that the committee had been talking to the telecom companies involved, "because if we're going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and understand what it is we're giving immunity for." You have to be kidding me! All this time no one has known what the telecoms did while Bush was demanding absolution and the Senate was going along with it? I'm stunned. Even a priest knows your sins before absolving you of them. And the fact that the House Intelligence Committee really believes that the telecoms are going to tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is so naive as to be juvenile. And these people are supposed to be representing us. I'm so disgusted I can barely breathe.
 
Political Animal noted that the telecom companies aren't really pushing for this. He said he had contact with an attorney who claims that the telecoms made Bush, et al. give them indemnification agreements saying that if they get sued the federal government (read taxpayers) will be for any judgments. Great. Political Animal goes on to state what we all already know: Bush wants the immunity NOT for the telecoms but to cover his own ass. He doesn't want it coming out who he was wiretapping, when, and why.
 
Contact your representative and let him/her have it. Don't let this issue fall "off the table" too.