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So the House passed the House Democratic leadership version of FISA, which does not allow amnesty for the telecoms, by a vote of 213-197. The Democrat's bill says that the telecom's can be sued for helping Bush with his illegal warrantless spy program.
So this bill will now go to the Senate, which, like Bush, not does like a FISA bill without the amnesty provision in it. the House bill will allow the telecoms to make their cases and to show classified evidence to the presiding judge in a closed session without having the plaintiffs in attendance. Source
As is usual, the Republican amnesty supporters had a few more fear-mongering statements to make after the bill was passed.
Democrats "know the risks they are taking on behalf of the American people and they don't care ... and that's what bothers me most," Republican Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico said.
Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida blasted Democrats for adjourning Congress for two weeks "without having given every protection available to the American people."
These sorry Republican's don't know when to quit with the scare tactics! It's all that they have left to run on, so I guess we'll just have to " suck it up " and listen to it a while longer.
The Department of Justice had a statement also.
"We are concerned that the proposal would not provide the intelligence community the critical tools needed to protect the country."
The statement also restates the administration's position that immunity protection is necessary so the program can continue.
"Exposing the private sector to continued litigation for assisting in efforts to defend the country understandably makes the private sector much more reluctant to cooperate. Without their cooperation, our efforts to protect the country cannot succeed," it said.
Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, warned Wednesday that the House proposal "would, in essence, shut us down" and sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter outlining his objections to the legislation.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers took a different angle.
"We are not going to cave into a retroactive immunity situation," the Michigan Democrat said. "There's no law school example in our memory that gives retroactive immunity for something you don't know what you are giving it for. It just doesn't work in the real world or on the Hill either."
Bush called the plan "a partisan bill that would undermine America's security," and White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the Democratic bill "would hamstring the intelligence community."
I do believe that the Republicans make recordings of their fear-mongering message since it is the same old crap day in and day out. I will most certainly be glad when this group of communist are no longer in office. I'll be more than happy if these lawsuits ever make it into a court of law just so that we have more evidence against Bush and Cheney so that they can rightfully be prosecuted in court for their crimes, which we all know are vast.
