The US Senate is set to vote on giving phone carriers retroactive immunity for surveillance of US citizens. Just a little something to make life easier for the National Security Agency (NSA). All of which goes to the Bush administration's collusion with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations on Americans, on their own soil.

Some insights into this over the weekend from the New York Times. As the Times piece points, the NSA was pushing for this before 9/11. The administration claims it's about protecting Americans from terrorism. But in reality, it's a blatant power grab by government agencies.

The bottom line is it ensures telcos will avoid lawsuits for breaking the law and spying on Americans.

"The executive branch and the largest telecommunications companies work in virtually complete secrecy - with no oversight and no notion of legal limits - to spy on Americans, on our own soil, at will," reports Glenn Greenwald at Salon. "More than anything else, what these revelations highlight - yet again - is that the U.S. has become precisely the kind of surveillance state that we were always told was the hallmark of tyrannical societies, with literally no limits on the government's ability or willingness to spy on its own citizens and to maintain vast dossiers on those activities."

The revelations also reveal the total ethical bankruptcy at the telcos. It's about corporate participation in activities that are ethically and legally questionable, all dressed up as a patriotic contribution to national security. And about an administration that is hell-bent on giving companies immunity for being immoral.