They did it to stop the lawsuits against telecoms, and to protect wrongdoers.

[madfloridian]

We have many happy Republicans today.

FISA Deal Will End Court Cases Vs Phone Cos - GOP Lawmakers

The GOP is very happy about this FISA bill. It lets the companies off the hook. Kit Bond's statement scares me. It is like going back to when Ari Fleischer told us right after 9/11 that we needed to be careful what we said.

Senior U.S. House and Senate Republicans said Thursday that civil court cases against phone companies that participated in the government's warrantless surveillance program will be tossed out of court as a result of the deal struck between the House and White House.

...'The Republican lawmakers said lawsuits could still be pursued against the government by those who believe the program itself is illegal. But they said even if those suits were ultimately successful, they would have no impact on the culpability of the phone companies.

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do," Bond said.

Yes, Kit Bond, and we need to be careful what we say.

From Bloomberg:

U.S. House Votes to End Suits Against Phone Companies

June 20 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House voted 293-129 to end privacy lawsuits against telephone companies that intercepted calls of suspected terrorists at President George W. Bush's direction.

The legislation that also puts Bush's terrorist surveillance program under court supervision now goes to the Senate, which passed a similar bill earlier this year by a lopsided margin. Bush endorsed the plan, a bipartisan compromise that ends a 10- month standoff between the president and the Democratic- controlled Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's backing in today's vote in Washington today eased the way for a later announcement by the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, that he will back the compromise legislation.

``Good intelligence is necessary to know the plans of the terrorist and to defeat those plans,'' said Pelosi, a California Democrat. The legislation also ``serves to strengthen the constitutional rights of Americans,'' said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat.

The bill would end more than 40 lawsuits against AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and other companies. They are accused of violating the privacy of their customers by helping the administration eavesdrop without court search warrants.

But we know it's good bill because Little Boots says it is.

``My director of national intelligence and the attorney general tell me this is a good bill,'' Bush said today at the White House. ``It is vital that the intelligence community has the ability to learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying.''

I am beginning to see more and more of the analyses of various parts of the bill. I am not liking what I see.

It in effect said to all of us who donated, called, worked with the ACLU, emailed....and called some more...

It said to us in the party...that we simply do not matter. Jane Harman admitted her constituents were against it, but she would vote for it anyway. Several who recently said they were against it, voted yes today.

Then on down the line we will hear from people even here at DU that Democrats must often take votes they don't like because of their constituents. They seem to want to have it both ways.

They told us that our concerns are not important. All the activism means nothing when it comes to making this administration happy, when it comes to stopping lawsuits against corporations.

It will pass the Senate next week. They will brag about what a good job they did.

And so on. Just like when Iraq happened.

Today our Democrats firmly put the grassroots in their place.