October 5, 2024

Feinstein Caves on Telco Immunity

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So, will the Democrats’ plan to hold out on this issue follow suit?  Probably.  Their resistance never did make any sense.  Why hold corporations hostage over a Bush administration power play?  Petulance?

The news:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that she favors legal immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly shared millions of customers’ telephone and e-mail messages and records with the government, a position that could lead to the dismissal of numerous lawsuits pending in San Francisco.   

Feinstein said the companies should not be “held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities.”

She endorsed a recent statement by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that companies assured by top administration officials that the surveillance program was legal “should not be dragged through the courts for their help with national security.”

Right on, Diane.

More:

Although suits against the companies are “not the right remedy,” Feinstein said, the administration should be held accountable through an audit of the surveillance program by the Justice Department’s inspector general, as proposed in the Senate legislation.

Also true.

The devil must be thinking about reaching for a sweater about now ’cause I just agreed with Ms. Feinstein twice in a row.  Wonders never cease.

Perhaps she’s thinking about becoming an Independent Democrat like Joe Lieberman

marc

Marc is a software developer, writer, and part-time political know-it-all who currently resides in Texas in the good ol' U.S.A.

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