There's not much to add to what Phil writes here [1] on the shameful, catastrophic, un-American bill that passed the House today, the one that gives telecom companies legal immunity for spying [2] on American citizens and retroactively legalizes the Bush administration's orders to do so.
The House today overwhelmingly approved a sweeping new surveillance law that effectively would shield telecommunications companies from privacy lawsuits for cooperating with the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
Ending a year-long battle with President Bush, the House approved, 293 to 129, a re-write of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that extends the government's ability to eavesdrop on espionage and terrorism suspects while providing a legal escape hatch for AT&T, Verizon Communications and other telecommunication firms. The companies face more than 40 lawsuits that allege they violated customers' privacy rights by helping the government conduct a warrantless spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Warrantless" - such a benign expression, isn't it? The better word for it is "in violation of the Fourth Amendment", but that would be too, well, in-your-face for the stewards of our public welfare to contemplate.
The ten Democratic representatives who voted for this monstrosity in our state, and who should be primaried as the barest tolerable retribution for this offense against the Constitution and your rights as a citizen, are:
Ackerman (NY-5) - Contact [3]
Arcuri (NY-24) - Contact [4]
Bishop (NY-1) - Contact [5]
Crowley (NY-7) - Contact [6]
Engel (NY-17) - Contact [7]
Gillibrand (NY-20) - Contact [8]
Higgins (NY-27) - Contact [9]
Lowey (NY-18) - Contact [10]
McCarthy (NY-4) - Contact [11]
Meeks (NY-6) - Contact [12]
Or, if you prefer, the Capitol switchboard is at (202) 224-3121.
They need to hear from you. Ask them why they think the Fourth Amendment (and that quaint rule-of-law stuff that was so important in the matter of one Monica Lewinsky) ceased to have any real meaning, and which other fundamental freedom of this Republic they're going to offer up next to Mr. 28%.
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