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Feingold: ‘Farce’ wiretap deal could be hiding ‘impeachable offense’ Nick Juliano The battle to protect Americans from warrantless wiretaps and hold telecommunications companies accountable is all but lost, Sen. Russ Feingold, a leading critic of President Bush’s likely illegal surveillance programs, said Monday. The “farce” of a surveillance law deal heralded by House Democratic leaders last week could permanently hide evidence of an “impeachable offense” on the part of President Bush, the Wisconsin Democrat said. Feingold spoke at the New America Foundation in Washington about the nation’s intelligence needs. He panned an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that quickly passed in the House last week. The Senate is expected to follow suit this year, officially putting the Democratic-controlled Congress’s seal of approval on an administration backed gambit to essentially legalize Bush’s warrantless surveillance program while at the same time letting off the hook phone companies that critics say facilitated the contravention of current law.
(Article continues below) “I do think this is a total farce with regard to the immunity [for telecommunications companies]. It basically guarantees the immunity,” Feingold said. “It doesn’t simply have the impact of potentially allowing telephone companies to break the law. It may prevent us from ever getting to the core issue … which is the president ran an illegal program that could’ve been an impeachable offense.” House Democratic leaders heralded the bill as a “bipartisan compromise” because instead of giving blanket retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated the president’s warrantless wiretapping program, it would route the grants of immunity through a district court. As long as the companies could demonstrate to a judge that they were instructed to spy on Americans by the Bush administration they would be spared the trouble of litigating more than 40 pending lawsuits , even though they initiated the surveillance without legally required warrants. “This is an astonishing giveaway,” Feingold said. The FISA update passed the House Friday, less than 24 hours after it was released. The bill was crafted after negotiations among moderate Democrats, Republicans, the White House and telecommunications lobbyists. The Senate is expected to pass the bill this week, and Feingold sounded pessimistic about the chances to improve it, although he said he would work with other skeptical senators to try. Feingold and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday to urge him not to simply rush the new surveillance bill through the Senate. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also has been critical of the proposed FISA update. “I’m very worried we’re not going to be able to prevail,” Feingold said in response to a question from RAW STORY. “Sen Dodd and I and Sen. Leahy are going to do everything that we can to stop this mistake, but I’m very concerned … that far too many Democrats will vote the wrong way.” One of those Democrats could be Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), the party’s presidential candidate. In a statement released Friday, Obama indicated support for the FISA deal, although he said he would work to remove the immunity provision. “I don’t know what Sen. Obama’s going to do,” Feingold said. “But Democrats should be voting against this.” Later during a question and answer section, Feingold was asked specifically whether he or Dodd would filibuster the FISA update this week. He said the two met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday to request that the bill not just be “rammed through” the Senate. “We’ll be requiring key procedural votes, and also taking some time on the floor this week, to indicate the problems of this legislation,” he said. “We’re not just going to let it quickly pass.” This video is from UStream TV, broadcast June 23, 2008.
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