This would be funny if it wasn't for the millions of partisan Republicans who believe it and will be parroting versions of it for the next few days.

Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama).

Even if correlation were causation, it takes a special kind of blindness to put a huge amount of effort into researching the campaign contributions of all of the lawyers involved in various suits against the telecommunications companies without doing any research at all into the contributions made by the companies themselves or the members of the law firms they've hired.

Irrespective, the people who work for the EFF (and similar organizations like the ACLU) make enormous career sacrifices in order to contribute to issues that they consider important. The idea that they are sitting in a lair somewhere counting gold coins and laughing manically as they make strategic campaign donations in attempt to further their personal success, all the while harming America's security against terrorism... Well, that idea might help some Republicans sleep better at night, because it allows them to ignore the strenuous objections raised to the power grabs that have been made by this administration, but its perfectly insane.

I care whether or not the phone company looks twice when someone claiming to be a law enforcement officer engaged in a legitimate investigation wants access to my phone calls. I want them to double check, and if the request isn't legal I want them to refuse access. This immunity sets a precedent that if the police engage in an illegal investigation there is no reason the phone companies should refuse to grant them access. It reopens the door to the sort of domestically targeted, politically motivated spying which lead to the passage of FISA in the first place. If this immunity is passed an administration that wishes to target it's domestic political enemies need merely come knocking with a document which says "Authorized by the AG" and if the phone companies object they can say "worst case, you'll get immunity."

I'm, frankly, open to the idea that the amount of civil liability faced here is too much. But, if the Republicans wish my support for immunity they must first explain HOW they intend to hold the Administration and the telcos accountable for illegal activities! They are not going to get anywhere by trying to convince me that no one actually has the concerns that I actually have, and that those who claim to have those concerns have been paid off.

Bob Novak thinks the EFF is in it for the money!