Congress has voted to immunize telecoms for alleged illegal lawbreaking, terminate lawsuits against them for doing this, and pretty much bless any darn eavesdropping that the Bush administration wants to do on anyone without warrants or following the FISA provisions for warrants. Glenn Greenwald is as annoyed as I am, not so much at the Republicans but at Democrats, Mr. Obama included.
This was sold as — and reported in the press as — a "compromise proposal." But in a compromise, both sides give up something and regret some aspect of the agreement. A number of Democrats regret things in it but I don't see any Republicans unhappy at even a semi-colon in the bill. This kind of thing wouldn't happen if the Democrats had a majority in either the House or the Senate.
I could to some extent buy the argument that the telecoms should not be punished for doing what their government asked them to do. What I don't like is the precedent/principle that there is apparently no such thing as illegal surveillance any longer. I would like to see the following question put to those who supported this bill: "Give me a few hypothetical but possible scenarios for instances of government eavesdropping where you would say, 'Someone ought to go to prison for this.'"
If they can't name a couple then the Fourth Amendment is kinda meaningless, isn't it? And if they can name some, then the question is how we would ever know if they were occurring and how would we prosecute in an environment when the administration (any administration) could just say, "This is necessary for the War on Terror?"