The increasingly tangled debate over federal surveillance powers reached a new milestone today when a Republican cloture motion failed to pass after receiving only 48 of the required 60 votes. If the cloture motion had passed, it would have blocked all further attempts to remove controversial telecom immunity provisions from a Senate intelligence committee surveillance bill by forcing an immediate vote on the bill itself. As it stands, the issue of retroactive immunity for telecoms who helped the NSA spy on Americans can now come to the floor for a full debate. A second cloture motion - filed by Congressional Democrats in an effort to force immediate vote on a 30 day extension to the Protect America Act - also failed to pass.

Read more: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080128-senate-blocks-vote-on-surveillance-bill-that-would-grant-telecom-immunity.html