Nick Juliano
Published: Friday June 20, 2008  Updated below: Republican Sen. Specter opposed to FISA compromise
With a vote expected as soon as Friday on a controversial surveillance law, activists are shifting into high gear a lobbying effort aimed at convincing moderate Democrats to stand for civil liberties and against a whitewash of lawless behavior from the Bush administration.
The American Civil Liberties Union is teaming with supporters of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and scores of liberal bloggers to pressure Congress on the surveillance law; the effort is calling itself Strange Bedfellows.
House and Senate leaders announced Thursday they had reached an accord in a yearlong fight over domestic spying; the deal would essentially legalize the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and would cause courts to dismiss privacy lawsuits pending against the telecommunications companies that facilitated the program. Salon's Glenn Greenwald provides a lengthy analysis of the new bill.
The ACLU says the new deal is "crap" and unconstitutional, comparing it to a lousy bill the Senate passed last year. More...
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I think that, instead of spying on us illegally, our government should be better about managing our foreign visitors and would-be citizens.
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