RTFA: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2276225,00.as…

Members approved H.R. 3773 by a vote of 213 to 197 Friday afternoon after a battle over whether members should vote on a House or Senate version of the bill.

At issue is a warrantless surveillance program that helped the government more easily eavesdrop on suspected terrorists after Sept. 11. Telecommunications companies cooperated with the government, and allowed the National Security Agency access to their networks without any court intervention.

The Senate passed a FISA bill recently that would grant telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for participating in the program, but the House version would requires those companies to face the music in the courtroom.

President Bush has for weeks pressured the House to adopt the Senate version of the bill, and has pledged to veto any bill that does not include retroactive immunity. A temporary FISA extension expired on February 16.

Apparently, the telecom companies could only corrupt 197 house reps, which is less than 50%. Yes! Democracy works!

RTFA: http://feingold.senate.gov/issues_immunityfacts.ht…

S. 2248 would require the courts to throw out lawsuits alleging that telephone companies broke the law by participating in warrantless surveillance. If the immunity provision became law, even if it could be proven that telephone companies clearly and knowingly broke the law, they would not be held accountable, and Americans’ privacy rights would be nullified.

The Dodd-Feingold amendment would strike this automatic, retroactive immunity provision and leave it to the courts to determine whether the telephone companies acted properly and therefore deserve immunity.

Great set of points to memorize for those holiday dinner-time discussions.

Senator Dodd has promised to lead the charge against Telecom Immunity, and it appears this has begun. We’re watching the proceedings, in real-time, streaming from FedNet.

As of 1440PST, Dodd is walking through the individual arguments that have been offered in favor of immunity, and then he is debunking them.

[EDIT]
Scratch that - it’s just a threat. See the update.
[/EDIT]

RTFA: http://www.eff.org/cases/att/attachments/master-co…

68. Since on or about February 1, 2001, BellSouth has disclosed and/or divulged the “call-detail records” of all or substantially all of their customers, including Plaintiffs, to the NSA, in violation of federal law, as more particularly set forth below.

69. BellSouth has, since on or about February 1, 2001, been disclosing to the NSA “individually identifiable customer proprietary network information” belonging to all or substantially all of their customers, including Plaintiffs, in violation of federal law, as more particularly set forth below.

Today, on the US Senate floor, a bill is being discussed that may or may not include a provision that grants retroactive amnesty to telecommunications companies that participated in the NSA’s domestic surveillance of telephones in the US. Bush has said that he will veto any bill that doesn’t include amnesty.

The excerpt above was taken from the complaint filed specifically against BellSouth, from the Factual Allegations section. These simple facts will mean everything, because if they are accepted as fact, it indicates that there is evidence this domestic surveillance program began seven months before September 11, 2001.

George W. Bush was sworn into office on January 20, 2001. This lawsuit would establish that, within two weeks of swearing to uphold the US Constitution, Bush had authorized the establishment of this surveillance program.

Today, the US Senate will decide whether or not this lawsuit, and others like it, should be thrown out of court.