The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to grant retroactive amnesty to the telecoms that aided the President Bush’s five-year secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans, and to expand the government’s authority to sift through U.S. communications, handing a key victory to the Bush administration.

The Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-Illinois) voted for the final bill, despite intense lobbying by supporters who used Obama’s own online organizing technology to try to hold him to his promise to fight any bill that included amnesty. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.

Richard Koman at ZDnet sums it up:

Obama issued a statement saying the bill was the best resolution that lawmakers were able to reach. But with the vote so lopsided, Obama could have easily voted against the bill, confident that it would pass anyway. It comes down to a matter of politics. The political tea-readers decided that there was no political upside to being against enhanced government spying, and so a vote was cast. Pity.

So much for Change.

You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci. Two reasons; first of all, I think he’s a good actor. Ok. To me, that counts. Second; he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn’t fuck around. Doesn’t fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that god was having trouble with. For years I asked god to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog. Joe Pesci straightened that cock-sucker out with one visit. — George Carlin, from You Are All Diseased

http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/campaign_ct_2008.htm

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/05/remixing-the-london.html

Think for yourself.

Or don’t.