Telecom Immunity - McCaskill Fooled Again

Remember when Claire "WWJTD?" McCaskill rushed along with the Senate Republicans to approve an extension for the NSA's spying? Remember how her excuse was that it was sooooo important that the NSA continue its spying on the bad guys that we had to do something, anything, quick, even if it meant allowing the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans?

Flash forward to the recent debate on retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that traded their customers' privacy for government contracts. McCaskill joined with those who threatened to vote Republican again (WWJTD?), forcing a real Democrat (Chris Dodd, God bless him) to threaten a fillibuster. The simplistic argument in favor of telecom immunity is that the companies should not be exposed to harm for patriotically going along with government requests.

Yesterday, we saw just how badly McCaskill had been fooled.

The Feds care so little about the service that they don't even pay their bills, an those "patriotic telecom companies" have been treating our over-protective spy agencies like credit-risky teenagers - dropping their services when they start falling behind on payments.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

It's gut check time for McCaskill. There's a lot riding on this retroactive telecom immunity issue, and, so far, she's on the wrong side of it. Did she spend all that time and all that money just so she could go to Washington and behave like Jim Talent? Did she really ask all of us who supported her campaign financially and with our volunteer hours to elect a stealth Republican?

Worse yet, did we support a fool? Or were we the fools?