Senate Surrenders on Surveillance Bill

Although Sen. Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) had long led the fight to bottle up a bill that changes the rules on secret government wiretapping, they lost today in a lopsided vote, 69 to 28.

Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.), the Democratic presidential candidate, had signaled his intention to support the bill last week, undercutting its opposition. In October 2007, he had vowed to filibuster any legislation granting immunity while campaigning.

This reversal set off a firestorm of criticism on the Internet. Progressive activists and bloggers alike assailed him for backtracking on the bill, many of whom helped to propel him to victory over his opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., NY) such as MoveOn.org. Ironically, Clinton voted against the bill.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), Obama's opponent this November, missed the vote but supported the legislation.

The telecom industry had an eye on an amendment proposed by Dodd, Feingold and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.). It proposed stripping the immunity for telecom companies from bill opening up legal action against companies such as AT&T(T Quote - Cramer on T - Stock Picks), Verizon(VZ Quote - Cramer on VZ - Stock Picks), Sprint(S Quote - Cramer on S - Stock Picks) and Qwest(Q Quote - Cramer on Q - Stock Picks). According to the AP, more than 40 lawsuits had been filed to hold the telecom industry accountable for their actions.

Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and blogger at Salon.com, has been an outspoken critic of the bill. He said of the bill via email:

"This bill provides a rigged process with a pre-determined outcome: guaranteed dismissal of the telecom lawsuits. It compels the court to dismiss the suits as long as the telecoms can show that they received documents from the Government which everyone already knows they have. It was written as a sham process to pretend that there is a court procedure when, in fact, it gives the telecoms the gift of automatic immunity."

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