Source: Raw Story
Update: The Senate has passed wiretapping bill in its entirety just before 6pm ET, 68-29. More here.
With just a few days until a stop-gap surveillance measure expires, the Senate finally seemed ready to acquiesce to President Bush’s demand that telecommunications companies that helped him spy on Americans be let off the hook.
After failing to strip immunity from the Senate bill, Sen. Chris Dodd announced he would abandon his effort to block the bill with a filibuster, arguing that the House, which has passed an immunity-free bill, would be a better place to try to strip immunity from Congress’s final piece of legislation.
“We lost every single battle we had on this bill,” Dodd said on a conference call Tuesday with reporters and bloggers. “And the question is now, Can we do better with the House carrying the ball on this bill?”
The bill to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including a provision granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated government spying, passed the Senate on a 68-29 vote Tuesday evening.
In an effort to move along the legislative process prior to a Friday deadline on the temporary measure, Dodd said he wanted the Senate to pass something so that both chambers can begin a conference committee. If the two chambers produce a bill containing immunity, Dodd said he would filibuster that conference report.
There seemed some hope for blocking immunity in the House, as its Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who has seen secret White House justifications for its warrantless wiretapping, said the documents do not support giving immunity to the telecommunications companies.
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