Thank you for your leadership, Senator Dodd

Sen. Chris Dodd prevailed in his noble stand against the National Surveillance State of George W. Bush.

The Senate late Monday delayed its consideration of a vote on a new government eavesdropping bill until January.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delayed the bill because there were more than a dozen amendments planned, and not enough time left on the legislative calendar to manage them.

"Everyone feels it would be to the best interests of the Senate that we take a look at this when we come back after the first of the year," said Reid, D-Nev.

[...]

Senate leaders hoped to decide this week whether to shield the telecommunications companies from the roughly 40 pending civil lawsuits alleging violations of communications and wiretapping laws. The White House says if the cases go forward they could reveal information that would compromise national security. If they succeed, the companies could be bankrupted.

The companies were helping the Bush administration carry out the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, a still classified effort that intercepted communications on U.S. soil without oversight from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from Sept. 11 to January 17, 2007.

"For the last six years, our largest telecom companies have been spying on their own American customers," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

Dodd spoke for several hours and threatened a filibuster, vowing to use "all the tools" at his disposal to prevent the bill's passage. After Democratic leaders pulled the bill, he issued a statement saying, "Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy."

"This program is one of the worst abuses of executive power in our nation's history," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. "It's time for congress to state, when we pass a law we mean what we said," Feingold said.

Feingold, Ted Kennedy and other Democratic senators spoke passionately on the floor about holding the line against Bush's determination to spy on American citizens free of restraint or accountability.

Republicans, on the other hand, shamed themselves. Their arguments in favor of telecom immunity amounted to nothing less than a plea to abandon the rule of law. Their willingness to trade their rights as citizens for the protection of a benevolent dictator is simply disgraceful. How they live with themselves, I don't know.

Targets

I did not think that the arguments in favor of telecom immunity could get any more ridiculous, but they have.

Today, John Cornyn and Orrin Hatch both argued that one of the reasons the telecoms must receive immunity for their lawbreaking is that their employees might become targets of the terrorists if we ever learn what these companies did to assist the government with its warrantless wiretapping.

Are there no Republicans who believe anymore in the rule of law?

Cornyn

Blah, blah, blah, telecoms helped protect America, blah, blah, 9/11, blah blah, lawsuits unfair, blah, responsible, bi-partisan bill, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

There are no words in the English language adequate to express my contempt for John Cornyn.

Kennedy: Bush undercuts his own argument about the importance of surveillance legislation

Sen. Ted Kennedy, the great liberal lion, just made a powerful point that I had not considered in such terms before, and in doing so, identified the key contradiction of Bush's demand for telecom immunity.

Kennedy reminded the senate that the president has insisted that broad, unchecked powers to spy on U.S. citzens are crucial to keeping Americans safe. Yet, Bush says that if congress sends him a surveillance bill that does not include telecom immunity, he will veto it.

Therefore, the only conclusion we can draw is that Bush thinks protecting the telecoms is more important than protecting Americans.

This is plainly true. Thanks to Sen. Kennedy for making the point.