Quote:
Originally Posted by Galaxy
|
It was one of those crazy cases where the merits of the compromise bill actually caused people to vote for it, despite the hyperbole still coming out of the ACLU and other groups that remained opposed.
Essentially, the President and Republicans conceded on provisions that will require a warrant to be issued
before any surveillance of US persons can be done, whether those persons are located domestically or overseas. They also agreed to some pretty stringent oversight provisions to ensure that the methods used by federal law enforcement and the intelligence community comply with the Fourth Amendment. So, the Dems won on the Constitutional stuff. Yay team.
The GOP won on telecom immunity. If telecoms can produce in court documentation from the Department of Justice given to them at the time all this stuff happened where the DOJ gives them an official opinion that what they were being asked to do was legal, the civil lawsuits against them can be dismissed. Although no documents such as these have been leaked or been confirmed to exist, most folks think that something official was given by DOJ to the telecoms.
A number of Dems voted against the bill because they hated giving up on immunity. Others, like Senator Obama, voted for it because they felt that the framework set up by the bill was good and would prevent future Administrations from pulling the same shenanigans as this one did.