Feb 12 2008

US Senate Keeps Telecom Immunity Provision

  • Written by Jorge
  • No Comments


Consumer rights advocates and the people they represent in the US was dealt with another blow today. The Senate approved a provision that would give US telecom companies retroactive immunity for warrentlessly wiretapping people using their networks.

Senators Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold tried putting an amendment into legislation that would change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The proposed amendment was going to be put into the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) The senate voted the amendment down 31 to 67.

The news comes on the heals of the news that congress is approving a bill that forces college campuses to fight copyright infringement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a press release on the matter saying that the bill would have to go to the House for additional debate to reconcile the differences between the act in its current incarnation and the RESTORE act.

“It’s time for Speaker Pelosi to draw a line the sand, and make clear to the president that this House of Representatives is never going to pass any bill that includes immunity for lawbreaking telecoms,” said Bankston. “It’s time for the president to show that he cares more about American lives than about the phone companies’ bottom lines by actually working toward a bipartisan agreement on how to update surveillance law for the 21st century.”

“Attempts by senators like Ms. Feinstein to find a reasonable compromise on the immunity question are much appreciated, but transferring all of the litigation to the secretive and conservative FISA court is unnecessary, inefficient and unwise,” said Bankston. “The regular federal courts are fully capable of handling these cases fairly and securely.”

The fear is that if retroactive immunity is put into law, it would stop the current litigation against AT&T in the Hempting v. AT&T case which alleges that AT&T broke US law by handing over all the information flowing through the AT&T networks to the NSA. EFF has recently brought forth an admission by the government that says that AT&T, in fact, assisted the government in tracking people without a warrant.

Related Posts

  1. US Telecom Amnesty Bill Passed – ISPs Let Off the Hook
  2. US Congress Approves Warrantless Wiretapping – 293 to 129
  3. US State of the Union Address – Give Telecoms Immunity
  4. USA – ACLU Condemns Warrentless Wiretapping – Legislation to be Voted on Today?
  5. Senate deals blow to Net neutrality
Zeropaid on Facebook

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

Trackbacks url:

Leave a Comment...

Giganews Newsgroups


1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars Loading ... Loading ...

  • john o: would appreciate an invite to iptorrents as demonoid is still down. if i am lucky then Thank U. ...
  • Lethal: 1337x.org is owned by a two faced, retarded, 55 year old child molester named "Mustangx". He will promise you ...
  • malcolm hume: The times are getting shorter though, used to be forever before a video release and now it's a couple of months. So...
  • malcolm hume: The whole release schedule thing is annoying, but it helps them pay for the movies and minimize the risk. Most of the m...
  • malcolm hume: They're not trying to stop piracy altogether. They know there's a few people who will go to the trouble to do ...
  • malcolm hume: The other thing is, the basic system we have is Capitalist. Trying to change that by making artists conform to a seperat...
  • malcolm hume: Well, the first one is mob rule and I think if we go down that road we'll have a lot more probelms than not being a...
  • malcolm hume: Ummm, no? ...
  • sdsd