telecommunications companies

Sean Braisted makes an interesting assertion in response to comparison by Mike Byrd between telcom immunity and desegregation:

"It is no more a waste of time to oppose telecom immunity now than it was to oppose school segregation in the 1950s when the majority of Americans were ambivalent about desegregation." - Mike Byrd

Russ McBee sees a silver lining in the cloud that is telecom immunity:

NYTimes has an editorial on Barack Obama's recent flip flops, of which the most regressive and Machivellian to me is his course change on telecom immunity and federal wiretapping:

Big brother is watching you and his name is AT&T. Sometimes he goes by the name of BellSouth and at other times he is known as AOL-Time-Warner. Big brother goes by a lot of names. He is listening to you while you talk and watching you while you type and everything you say could be recorded so he can look at it somewhere down the line.

From the west side, my political boyfriend, Rep. Steve Cohen, voted no. The congressman, Rep. John Tanner,  that I can cast a vote for voted yes.

Sean Braisted doesn’t think it’s all that big of a deal if a Democrat supports granting telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for cooperating with government wiretaps:

This is a sad day.

Numerous democrats sided with the GOP to give telecoms immunity for illegally wiretapping American’s.

The Senate voted Tuesday to shield from lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.