Telecom Companies Seek Retroactive Immunity

kidcharles writes "Newsweek reports that a secretive lobbying campaign has been launched by telecommunications companies who are seeking retroactive immunity from private lawsuits over their cooperation with the NSA in the so-called 'terrorist surveillance program.' Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has claimed that lawsuits could 'bankrupt these companies.' The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against AT&T over their cooperation in the domestic spying program. EFF legal director Cindy Cohen said of the lobbying campaign, 'They are trying to completely immunize this [the surveillance program] from any kind of judicial review. I find it a little shocking that Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on.'"

Re:Why shocking?

[Dunbal]

After all, Congress is more than willing to grant the Bush administration retroactive protection from prosecution as a war criminal [liveleak.com]... why not help his corporate buddies while they're at it?

Darn...

[Sj0]

You know, I really really REALLY hate to say this...

But these guys were just following cues from the NSA. They should be given immunity, and the people in charge who allowed the NSA to solicit these companies into doing illegal wiretapping should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law -- and if it's not very illegal, the law should be changed and they should be prosecuted above and beyond the full extent of the current law.

Re:Darn...

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone tells you to break the law and you do it, you are still breaking the law and you're responsible for it. Without that kind of responsibility you'll end up with a fascist state where people commit atrocities and excuse themselves with "I was just doing what I was told to do. I had no choice." Millions of people died to end the Nazi regime. The people of the German Democratic Republic risked their livelihoods and lives to end the oppressive socialist regime and its pervasive surveillance organization. Don't fall back into the "it wasn't me" mindset that made these regimes possible.

Re:Ex Post Facto laws unconstituional?

[PJ1216]

You can change the legal status from illegal to legal under certain circumstances. Such as situation where someone finds a loophole so that they get punished for doing something that really shouldn't have been illegal, but due to the wording of the law, it technically was. Laws can be retroactively applied to 'free' people. However, in this case, they'd have to make it legal for the companies to do whatever it was that they did. I for one hope they never make it legal and in that case, they therefore can't retroactively apply it.

Re:Darn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, the NSA needs warrants to spy domestically just like everyone else. The telcos are just as guilty as the govt in this case.

This is probably also a violation of every Terms Of Service agreement for all those carriers as well. Something along the lines of "We will not divulge any of your personal information unless required to execute a warrant."

How many times....

[Anonymous Coward]

Has McConnell et. Al brought up the issue of retroactive immunity before a congressional hearing? Its starting to get old and others seem to be catching this nasty meme.

We can't say anything about what we're doing because it will help the bad guys. Oh and by the way *we* (Can we say conflict of interest??!) reviewed all 50 or so lawsuites pending and believe none of them have any merit... Regardless we desperatly need to grant retroactive immunity to all those telephone companies that have helped us. Doing this is necessary to help ensure that none of our secrets come to light in unecessary court cases and prevent companies from thinking twice before helping us again.

WHAT IF ...

The government has illegally infringed on the privacy of Americans. Invoking "state secrets" and quashing legal challenges to its actions would seem to me to be an effective way of ever having the truth come to light.

On these grounds its imperative we don't grant any government institution the ability to design and explot loopholes allowing it to effectivly circumvent either the constitution or checks and balances regardless of what we may think about them or what they may honestly believe their intentions to be.

Those spouting that carriers had no choice is interesting.. Even the government has to get service from someone? Telcos do have leverage and lobbiests and communicate with each other on a regular basis.

Re:Ex Post Facto laws unconstitutional?

[Toliaro]

Note carefully: this is not about declaring previous behavior to be retroactively legal, it is about passing a new law that would wipe out current lawsuits. This is different, and it has been done many times in the past. (After 9/11 a new law was passed to prevent thousands of expected lawsuits from being filed by victims' families.) This approach can serve a useful social purpose if used approriately, and the question is whether the tactic is appropriate to protect heavily-regulated companies who may have "over-cooperated" with government.

BTW it's good that you know the constitution because the 'ex post facto' thing is emphatically not dead, which probably led to the end run described in the article.