Telecom Immunity Bill Hides Spying Provisions

Slashdot mentions an analysis in ars technica of the new FISA bill that has been receiving much attention of late, with the particularly alarming realization that the bill loosens current protections on domestic wiretapping.

The ars technica article expounds on the dramatic expansion of the government's ability to wiretap without any real judicial oversight while also giving the fed unprecedented additional latitude in choosing eavesdropping targets on anything, not just terrorist-related activities. Basically, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 opens up such huge loopholes to the feds that the telecom immunity issues are somewhat trivialized by comparison. The new legislation stretches the judicial process out so much that in many cases, the federal government would be able to finish its surveillance activities before the courts have even decided whether they're legal.

To date so far, the only determined opposition is a small group of Senators led by Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold, who have managed to stall the legislation for a couple of weeks.

"By blocking a vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the fight to stop retroactive immunity goes on -- for another week anyway" said Dodd. "The Senate will take the bill up again this week as it returns from the July 4th recess."

For complete article see, ars technica.