House Dems actually have backbone on telco immunity?

House Democratic leaders are prepared to say no to telecom immunity as part of FISA renewal with a much better alternative This bill would authorize trial judges in the suits already pending against AT&T et al to look at the actual evidence, thus legally throwing out BushCo’s “state secrets” claim, make a summary of their findings for plaintiffs, and continue to hear the suits from that point.

Here are key points:

The tentative proposal worked out by House Democratic leaders, officials said, has three main elements.

It would impose tougher restrictions on National Security Agency eavesdropping than the Senate version does by requiring court approval before the agency’s wiretapping procedures, instead of approval after the fact. It would also reject retroactive immunity for the phone carriers.

The proposal would also create a bipartisan Congressional commission with subpoena power to issue a report on the surveillance programs, including the one approved by Mr. Bush to monitor some Americans’ international communications without warrants.

The commission would seek to find out how the program was actually run. Some Democrats complain that even now, more than two years after the program was first publicly disclosed, many questions about its operations remain unanswered.

Theoretically, this is actually better for telecoms. They could, with all cards laid on the table, present as vigorous of a legal defense as they wanted. Or, once they knew for once and for all that the state secrets issue was dead, they could decide to accept the obvious, and then get down to the business of negotiating out-of-court settlements.

One thing the House bill does not have is federal indemnification of claims against telcos. And I agree that it shouldn’t.

First, the warrantless wiretapping started before 9/11. Second, not everybody did it. Once again, it is most relevant to mention Joseph Nacchio and Qwest.