February 12, 2008 3:09 PM

Retroactive Immunity Passed by Senate

The Senate just passed S.2248, the Intelligence Committee's FISA reform legislation, including approval to massive new surveillance powers for the executive branch and retroactive immunity for telecom companies who helped the Bush administration spy on Americans without warrant.

The vote was 68-29.

The nineteen Democrats voting for the bill were:

Conrad, Rockefeller, Baucus, Webb, Kohl, Whitehouse, Bayh, Johnson, Bill Nelson, Mikulski, McCaskill, Lincoln, Casey, Salazar, Inouye, Ben Nelson, Pryor, Carper, and Landrieu.

Joe Lieberman also voted with 49 Republicans in favor of final passage.

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did not vote on final passage.

The only other change from the earlier cloture vote on the SSCI bill is that Senator Diane Feinstein voted against final passage, after voting for cloture.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is a very sad day for our nation.

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Matt Browner Hamlin helped lead the fight against telecom immunity as part of Senator Chris Dodd's presidential campaign. He has joined the CREDO Mobile team to stop the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program and hold the telecom companies accountable for their lawbreaking.