The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon voted to put an end to the NSA spying scandal by approving a bill to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly.

Cowed by the Bush administration’s pre-election scare tactics, the Senate passed freedom-stealing FISA legislation undermining your Fourth Amendment rights.

This is not a “compromise,” as some in Congress would have us believe.

The FISA Amendments Act allows for mass, untargeted and warrantless surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States... And to top it off, it hands immunity to telecom companies for their role in domestic spying. This means your phone calls can be tapped and emails read with virtually no proof of threat, and there's no chance to learn how the telecoms invaded your privacy.

It’s outrageous, unconstitutional and un-American.

In one fell swoop, Congress has not only legalized the Bush administration’s secret NSA spying program, it has given the government even more power to listen to our phone calls and read our emails than even the Bush administration illegally claimed for itself under its secret program. And, by granting telecoms immunity, it has greatly harmed the chances of ever learning the extent of the administration’s lawless actions.