Obama Joins The Chorus

Looks like Barack Obama has strengthened his opposition to any bill which allows for retroactive immunity of telecom companies for their lawbreaking efforts to allow the Bush Administration to spy on Americans..

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

As Digby notes, this isn't really that hard. The Bush Administration has pretty much everything they need at their disposal to surveil on suspected terrorists, and they don't even have to get the warrant until AFTER the surveillance begins. Their goal is to eliminate the FISA court and to end any Congressional or judicial oversight of their activities. That shoud simply not be allowed, certainly not by a Democratic Congress.

If they cannot fold firm on this, I really don't know what else they can do. This is Constitutional democracy at stake.

UPDATE: Chris Dodd has some thoughts:

The way I see it, there are three ways to get this provision stripped from the final bill:

1.) The first step would be to make sure the idea doesn't make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- where it will be considered shortly.

If we can get it stripped there, it will have to be offered as an amendment to the overall bill where it will be a lot easier to get 41 votes against retroactive immunity than 41 to sustain my filibuster if necessary.

Take a moment and call up members of the committee, let me know what they said, and join others in tracking our progress in stopping the provision right there.

http://chrisdodd.com/immunity

The other two ways:

2.) If retroactive immunity does make it out of committee, Senate leadership can honor the hold I've placed on any legislation that includes retroactive immunity.

3.) If leadership does not honor my hold, I remain committed to filibustering, and working to get the 41 votes necessary to maintain it.

This has the potential to be a long fight -- so let's build a solid foundation for our effort today by asking members of the Judiciary Committee to vote against any FISA bill that includes retroactive amnesty.

http://chrisdodd.com/immunity

I'd like to see a little more spine, frankly, on these issues. People tell us they want to lead, but a little leadership right now would certainly be welcomed on these questions.

I don't want to, but I'm not afraid to do this alone.