Glenn Greenwald has all the disguising details. I think most important is this part:
Let’s just describe very factually and dispassionately what has happened here. Congress — led by Senators, such as Jay Rockefeller, who have received huge payments from the telecom industry, and by privatized intelligence pioneer Mike McConnell, former Chairman of the secretive intelligence industry association that has been demanding telecom amnesty — is going to intervene directly in the pending lawsuits against AT&T and other telecoms and declare them the winners on the ground that they did nothing wrong. Because of their vast ties to the telecoms, neither Rockefeller nor McConnell could ever appropriately serve as an actual judge in those lawsuits.
The telecom companies have been losing their court battles over this, so the Senate is willing to hamper our judicial system by intervening. Is Rockefeller going forward with this to protect his checkbook? If that is the case then his ass needs rode out of Senate faster than Duke Cunningham and Tom Delay.
If this country wants any hope of surviving then it is time for our elected leaders to listen to the people and not the corporations. It is sad to watch these Republicans and Democrats destroy what was once the greatest country this planet has seen.