telecom immunity

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and committee members Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.), Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are expected to introduced in the Senate today a bill that would repeal the immunity granted to telecommunications companies under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) passed last year. The immunity provisions ensured the dismissal of [...]

Eight years after it was passed, the USA Patriot Act remains among the most controversial pieces of counterterrorism legislation in the so-called “war on terror.”

A federal district court judge in California yesterday dismissed a slew of lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies that allegedly helped the U.S. government engage in warrantless wiretapping.
Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco dismissed the cases because Congress explicitly gave the telecom companies immunity from civil suits in a 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [...]

Who said “telecom immunity?”
With the economy in the tank and Washington distracted by gazillion-dollar industry bailouts, it seems like forever since that buzz-phrase — ubiquitous earlier in the year — was uttered in this town.
You recall the issue: The White House wanted not only expanded powers to spy on Americans without court oversight, but also [...]