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The Dems will be in a tailspin with this article. Way to go Verizon!!

Key points:

"Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times, it said in the letter."

"The information was used for a range of criminal investigations, including kidnapping and child-predator cases and counter-terrorism investigations."

"Verizon said it had received FBI administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, requesting data that would "identify a calling circle" for subscribers' telephone numbers, including people contacted by the people contacted by the subscriber."

The thing that never gets mentioned is that a lot of the tools available to the FBI, etc were ones already available during their investigations of the mafia. I don’t remember Dems being up in arms about that...in fact, they were in on the creation of those tools.

More Dem hypocrisy.

I can hear the screaming moonbats and leftist loonies already, claiming assault on the Constitution on this one.

Personally, even with the thought of surveillance to fight terrorism that it was intended to interdict, the Liberals fear that eavesdropping for political purposes would prove EXTREMELY damaging to them, when the chain of money is uncovered on how the Hildabeast and the rest of the Socialists operate.

I still think those who scream loudest have the most to hide, but yet, I am sure they are the biggest bunch of illegal eavesdroppers, telephone-tappers, classified document-leakers in the world.

You can bet on how the MSM will parrot the DNC talking points on this one!

From full article: Both Verizon and AT&T suggested in their letters that they already enjoy legal immunity under existing laws. But AT&T said that when the lawsuits involve allegations of highly classified activity, the company cannot prove its immunity claims.

That's key, and so far, it seems like they're right. No one seems to have won against them yet. Of course, to an "activist" lawyer, making a frivolous claim is ethical so long as a political point is made.

The Senate Intelligence Committee could draft a bill this week that includes relief for the carriers. The administration is seeking blanket immunity, which would extend to anyone sued for assisting the government -- not just telecom carriers -- in its post-Sept. 11 surveillance programs.

Sounds good, though I trust the plan includes requiring the party seeking immunity to provide some evidence of actually having assisted the government.

The Democrats, particularly Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, have their proverbial marbles in a vise now. Either they vote to grant immunity, and piss off their base, or vote to deny immunity, and piss off everyone else. I don't care what anyone says, national security is still a losing issue for the Democrats.

I am all for it with kid-napping and terrorism, where the circumstance is time critical and life threatening. However, it shouldn’t be any sort of standard practice. Simply don’t need the government collecting information on its citizens at will. And there should be documentation on the backend even in these instances.

> The Dems will be in a tailspin with this article. Way to go Verizon!!

You won’t be so happy about Verizon’s cavalier attitude about handing over your information to federal authorities if Queen Hitlery gets into power.

Always be vigilant about power grabs by the Feds, people. Once power is given you have to scrape and claw to get it out of their hands.

Americans will be shocked, shocked I tell ‘ya. Then we’ll go back to watching Law and Order, Without a Trace, NCIS, 24, and all those other shows where the police and FBI apparently have PCs linked directly into the phone companies’ records.