The Senate has apparently reached a deal that threatens any attempt to uncover the details of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens and whether those actions violated the law.

This is a sad and embarrassing trial and the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, is essentially throwing the rule of law and the rigorous pursuit of justice under the bus--and it's not clear what is gained by doing so.  It's very clear what is lost.

When the Bush administration's intelligence agencies began domestic spying operations, the major telecom companies had to comply to make it work.  The White House, on the one hand, insists that it was legal; on the other hand, at the very same time, wants the telecom companies to receive retroactive immunity from any civil litigation--for allowing their customers' privacy to be violated by the federal government.

To recap, the White House is pushing two circles of logic here, and both are dangerous.  One is that the White House says that its wiretapping program was legal, but still wants telecoms to be granted immunity.  The other, which I covered earlier, is that the White House wants Congress to grant the telecoms immunity, but is preventing the telecoms from going before Congress to divulge what they did and what they'd deserve immunity from.

If we want a chance at justice with regard to the wiretapping program, letting the telecom companies retroactively off the hook may make that impossible, because then they'll never have to comply with any investigations.

It is unclear why the Senate would grant immunity to the telecoms while being kept in the dark about their activities in allowing domestic spying on American citizens.

Update: At least three of the top-10 contributors to Rockefeller are telecom industry giants. Sadly but not surprisingly, "American citizens who were unlawfully spied on" do not have a well-funded PAC, or maybe this would have turned out differently.