Friday, November 16, 2007

House to telecoms: Fight your own lawsuits

Raw Story

Democrats scored a pair of victories Thursday in the battle to hold accountable telecommunications companies that allegedly assisted the Bush administration in its efforts to warrantlessly wiretap Americans.

The House late Thursday passed an update to a foreign surveillance law that did not include a Bush-requested provision granting legal immunity to the powerful telecoms. A Senate committee scored a similar win against immunity when it unexpectedly sent to the full Senate a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act revision that did not include immunity.

Activists who had fought to exclude the immunity provision last night cheered the dual victories, but none was ready to rest yet.

"It’s a huge victory," wrote Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake, "but just the beginning of the fight."

The article says that there are about 40 lawsuits pending against phone and Internet providers.

Maybe if these lawsuits cost them a few billion dollars, they'll think twice next time before violating the Constitution and breaking the law just because a criminal president tells them to and threatens them with the FCC and loss of contracts if they don't. Look for your phone and IP bills to go up.

Everything this criminal president does costs us - you and me - money, the Prick.

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