Are Senate Democrats preparing to capitulate on Telecom immunity?
by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com Time’s Massimo Calabresi predicts the likely outcome of the imminent FISA and telecom immunity fight, to begin this week or next: Congress will soon take up the far more contentious question of domestic eavesdropping. Last summer, it passed the Protect America Act (PAA), which was designed to modernize the 1978 law controlling electronic surveillance of Americans. After initially trying to block the bill, which expanded the government’s ability to track suspect individuals, Democrats caved. But in a last-ditch effort to placate civil libertarians, the Democrats attached a six-month sunset on the old law. That six-month extension ends Feb. 1 and the pressure is on for a permanent fix for the 1978 law. Democrats find themselves in the same corner they were in last summer: on the one hand their base demands they block expanded domestic spying powers for the Bush Administration; on the other, they can’t risk looking soft on terrorism, especially nine months be
