The Dodd Filibuster?

[UPDATED]
Something happened in the Senate on Monday, but I'm not entirely sure I can explain what it was. We were supposed to have seen a courageous filibuster by Chris Dodd against a provision in the FISA bill to grant telecoms immunity for whatever spying, eavesdropping, and surveillance they committed against their customers. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was putting forward a version of the bill that included retroactive immunity for the telecoms, which would mean that not only would they be forever protected from prosecution, but they'd be forever protected from investigation. We'd never get to find out what they actually did, whether we agreed ahead of time not to punish them or not. Russ Feingold had a good summary of the issue, including some discussion of how Reid had the opportunity to present a bill stripped of the immunity provisions early Monday morning at TPMCafe.

Dodd and Feingold both gave impassioned speeches this morning, but I continued to wait for Dodd to start filibustering. There were reports that he was negotiating with Reid for some sort of compromise, but details were hard to glean. Finally, it was announced that Reid was pulling the bill from Senate consideration. He's threatening to bring it back in January, but for now there's no telecom immunity bill.

For further reading, check out Barack Obama's Glenn Greenwald's post about the filibuster. Also, wade through the posts on December 17 at firedoglake, which has been heavily invested in the process. (Specific subjects are harder to find there now that the posts have lost their tags.) For now, just be glad that we got to this point. We've still got to fight the no-immunity FISA bill next month, but we should be appreciative of any small victories in this process. In the meantime, before this post gets any more unfocused, I'm going to bed.

UPDATE--I have no idea why I typed Barack Obama when I clearly meant Glenn Greenwald. I've never confused them for each other before--they look nothing alike. Note to Doug: Stop posting in your sleep!