The "Democratic" Congress Joined the President to Sell Us Down the River

Democrats abdicate and compromise Americans' right to redress grievances and violations through the court system to George W. Bush and Big Telecom. As always, AT&T wins, and I have to assume that our own Blue Dog Congressman Jim Cooper (a "Joe Lieberman" by any other name?) has been promoting this "compromise" for his big-ticket constituents in the Batman Building:

The proposal allows a district judge to examine what are believed to be dozens of written directives given by the Bush administration to the phone companies after the Sept. 11 attacks authorizing them to engage in wiretapping without warrants. If the court finds that such directives were in fact provided to the companies that are being sued, any lawsuits “shall be promptly dismissed,” the proposal says.

Even Democratic officials, who had initially opposed giving legal immunity to the phone companies, conceded there was a high likelihood that the lawsuits would have to be dismissed under the standards set out in the proposal. That possibility infuriated civil liberties groups, which said the cursory review by a district judge would amount to the de facto death of the lawsuits.