Russ Fein­gold is one of the few truly coura­geous leg­is­la­tors we have on Capi­tol Hill.

“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, and which fails to pro­tect the pri­vacy of law-abiding Amer­i­cans at home. Allow­ing courts to review the ques­tion of immu­nity is mean­ing­less when the same leg­is­la­tion essen­tially requires the court to grant immu­nity. And under this bill, the gov­ern­ment can still sweep up and keep the inter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tions of inno­cent Amer­i­cans in the U.S. with no con­nec­tion to sus­pected ter­ror­ists, with very few safe­guards to pro­tect against abuse of this power. Instead of cut­ting bad deals on both FISA and fund­ing for the war in Iraq, Democ­rats should be stand­ing up to the flawed and dan­ger­ous poli­cies of this administration.”

Rumors that demo­c­ra­tic lead­ers were com­plicit from the begin­ning in civil rights vio­la­tions includ­ing wire­tap­ping and tor­ture must be true. Why else capit­u­late. The democ­rats as Jonathon Tur­ley says, are in collusion.