Wake Up: Sen. Feinstein Did Not Kill Telecom Immunity

You can draw your own conclusions from what went down this weekend in Anaheim, where a physical altercation and an eventual squashing of the censure resolution to Dianne Feinstein made for an unusually interesting executive board meeting. But I have to call attention to what is being put out there as a growing meme, that DiFi somehow worked with Chris Dodd to "kill" telecom immunity in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. Art Torres in his speech to the party reiterated this point. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth, and anyone pushing this line is delivering blatant misinformation.

Sen. Feinstein voted AGAINST stripping immunity out of the Title II provisions of the bill. The eventual vote to report out a bill without immunity was simply a chance to buy time. As I noted the other day, James Risen's article in the New York Times nailed this:

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who also opposed Mr. Feingold's measure, pleaded with Mr. Leahy to defer the immunity issue because she wants more time to consider several compromise proposals.

What happened in the Judiciary Committee was a punt. There's going to be a floor fight, and NOTHING is resolved. DiFi wants to sign on to a bipartisan centrist compromise that probably won't be a compromise at all. If and when she does so, we can assess her position on the merits; for now, we can continue to tell her how we feel on the issue (And I hope Chairman Torres along with anyone else concerned about granting legal amnesty to companies who break the law and violate our privacy will continue to do so). But suggesting that she "led the fight" to kill telecom immunity is an insult to my intelligence. How can you kill something that's not dead, and where the so-called leader is actually looking for ways to return it to the bill on the floor? Try that logic on somebody else.

(Incidentally, the way certain progressive organizations whooped and hollered and jumped in to take credit for DiFi's vote, which was nothing more than a vote to take pressure off of her, didn't help matters.)