House Dems who changed their vote to support FISA bill, giving immunity to telecos, received, on average, $8,359 in PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. The MAPLight.org "compiled PAC campaign contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint and correlated them with the voting records of all House members who voted on last week’s FISA bill." Click the link to see the sad results.
Q: If they will sell out our 4th amendment rights for $8,359, what will they do for $15,000? $20,000? $25,000? One thing for sure, there isn't enough money in the world to get them to fuck with the 2nd amendment, because the people who are unwavering about their rights under that amendment are armed.
That said, there is one senator out there who is doing everything he can to try to stop this travesty: Feingold gets FISA Delayed! Pundicrat writes that according to The Hill: Objections by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) will push back an overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until after lawmakers return in July, Democratic leaders said Thursday. Feingold is strongly opposed to language that would likely give telephone companies that participated in warrantless surveillance retroactive immunity from lawsuits.
We need to cover Feingold's back. No doubt Steny Hoyer, Harry Reid and others are not amused by his move to stymie this piece of shit bill. Call and thank him (202-224-5323) and Senator Dodd (202-224-2823), and call your senators and Obama's office and demand that they kill the telecom immunity provision (at a minimum). Senate contact information can be found here: Senate contact list. Hell, send Obama an e-mail right now.
Thanks to Morse for the MAPLight.org link.
Update: I forgot to mention Senator Dodd's role in fighting FISA. I just added his name to the relevant paragraph and his DC phone number. He and Feingold deserve our thanks.