Spotlight: McCain camp comments raise question of telco immunity stance

An aide to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign said publicly last week that if McCain were president, telcos would be forced to explain their role in the federal government's warrantless wiretapping program. It is unclear how the comments will affect ongoing Congressional negotiations over whether or not telcos should gain blanket immunity for their actions, but those talks had begun to make progress only recently after breaking down earlier this spring in disagreement. According to Wired, the comments were made at a conference by McCain lawyer Chuck Fish, included the following: "There would need to be hearings, real hearings, to find out what actually happened, what harms actually occurred, rather than some sort of sweeping of things under the rug." Those statements contradict McCain's voting record on the issue earlier in the year when Democrats were pushing a bill with telco immunity included.

For more:
- read this story at The Washington Post
- see this post at Wired

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