Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Obama will back filibuster of telecom immunity

According to the TalkingPointsMemo website:

Obama will back a filibuster of any Senate FISA legislation containing telecom immunity, his campaign has just told Election Central. The Obama campaign has just sent over the following statement from spokesman Bill Burton:
"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."


Finally, it looks like at least some Democrats in Congress are going to take a stand. Congress has no business granting retroactive immunity to anyone or any company for breaking the law. I want to hear the defense the telecommunication companies offer in court for having granted the government access to private conversations of American citizens without a warrant. Of course, for the time being they are only being threatened with law suits, not criminal prosecutions. But it should be interesting to see how much support the President will have left in the business community and in the military once it becomes clear that there may be a price to be paid for having broken the law on his say-so.

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