The NY Times buried the story this afternoon. Maybe they were busy getting wiretapped on the phone.

After close to a year of in-house cock fighting, the House passed a bill today that will listen into your cavernous soul. Or something similar.

The outdated and now unfabulously updated FISA bill, passing 293 to 129, with near-unanimous support from Republicans, will shield phone companies from billions of dollars in lawsuits for their participation in the warrant-less surveillance program that were initiated by Bush after the September 11 attacks. It now travels to the Senate, where it’s expected to pass easily. Kidney stones everywhere grimace.

The only senator who opposed the Patriot Act, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, also said the following today about the telecommunication tragedy: “The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation.”

“The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program…”

Remember when Russ and McCain were friends?

The bill will allow the following…

· Grants amnesty to the nation’s telecoms that are being sued for allegedly breaking federal wiretapping laws by turning over billions of Americans’ call records to government data-mining programs

· Strips the right of a federal district court to decide whether the companies violated federal laws prohibiting wiretapping without a court order.

· Use broad warrants to eavesdrop on foreign targets and conduct emergency wiretaps without court orders on American targets for a week if it is determined important national security information would be lost otherwise.

· The intelligence community will be able to issue broad orders to U.S. ISPs, phone companies and online communications services like Hotmail and Skype to turn over all communications that are reasonably believed to involve a non-American who is outside the country.

· Spy agencies will not have to name their targets or get prior court approval for the surveillance. 

The government has eavesdropped on phone and computer lines ever since the Sept. 11 attacks without authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Close to 40 lawsuits have been filed against the telecommunications companies by those believing the Bush administration illegally monitored them.Yet not so fast, lawsuit-pants, says the attorney general. Our nation’s lawyer would merely need to tell a courts that a sued company was under government authorization during the surveillance. Thusly, granted full immunity.

And that immunity is clearly unconstitutional, according to the ACLU’s Caroline Fredrickson.

“The telecom companies simply have to produce a piece of paper we already know exists, resulting in immediate dismissal,” Fredrickson said. “That’s not accountability. Loopholes and judicial theater don’t do our Fourth Amendment rights justice.”

The White House has threatened to veto any surveillance bill that will not also shield the companies. The deal marks a mammoth, though fabulously late victory for the lame-duck in office

This all but substantiates what many have feared, suspected and hoped was untrue: there is much more independent surveillance than the government or its lawyers have ever admitted. And will never have to justify.

Now listen to a sane man. Wait, there are two!