Telecom Immunity -- We're Down to the Wire(tap)

The law says telecom providers can't wiretap your phone calls or net traffic, but as long as their taps are legal or they acted in good faith they're already immune from prosecution and lawsuits. That said, your telecom providers are still trying to get Congress to immunize them for cooperating with NSA wiretaps (presumably because the taps were both illegal and done in bad faith). Retroactive immunity wouldn't just mean they get away with it, it would crush our ability as citizens to find out what happened using the power of the courts. Last month, Sen. Chris Dodd temporarily stopped the bill, but within days -- probably on Monday -- it's going to be reintroduced, and it's not at all clear it will be stopped again. He'll need strong allies, because he's fighting not just the Bush administration and GOP Senators, but his own party's Sen. Harry Reid and "AT&T's personal Senator" Jay Rockefeller. So Dodd needs more Senators backing him up, preferably joining a full-blown filibuster on the Senate floor. If you ever want accountability for whatever companies illegally forwarded your data to the NSA, you basically have today and tomorrow to say something.

My letter to Sen Reid yesterday

You can write your own letter to Sen. Reid here [senate.gov]. As tough as it may seem, please keep it civil.

Dear Senator Reid,

I learned today of your decision forcing Mr. Dodd to filibuster on the Senate floor in opposition to the bill offering retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies involved in warrantless wiretapping of US citizens' phone calls.

Senator Reid, I have one question for you: Whose interests are you representing here? Clearly not those of the US citizens, nor those of your constituents, nor the principles of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, nor those of your Party.

The American public is not stupid, and neither are Nevadans. They will be asking the same question. Who are you working for? Because clearly it's not us.

I urge you, Senator, to make a stand and not allow this perverse precedent to be set. There is a huge groundswell of voters waiting to get behind someone in a position of power who will demonstrate both courage and principles. Be that person, Senator Reid, and it will pay off for you.

Mr. Bush and his cronies are on the way out. Don't be sent packing with them.

[bughunter]
Pasadena, CA
Incline Village, NV

FAX EM

It's been pointed out here in the past that letters are held up in security FOREVER in this "post-anthrax in the mail" world, and phone calls are sometimes mentally dismissed because they're so easy to do. Emails are EXTRA easy to do, but a FAX to your local Senators (remember: you have TWO) is in order. The fax carries the weight of the written word, but the speed of the phone system. Use the text of the parent letter as a guide, but use the fax machine.

Two proposed solutions:

Just FYI, there are really two proposals here for the telecom industry.

1. Pass a law giving the telcos absolute immunity for the wiretapping, as discussed here. Meaning, no suit can be brought.

2. Pass a law that makes the US Govt liable for the wiretapping, while still allowing the telcos to be sued. This means, suit can be brought, during trial discovery can be made, etc, but whatever liability is ultimately found is covered by the US Govt.

Re:

2. Pass a law that makes the US Govt liable for the wiretapping, while still allowing the telcos to be sued. This means, suit can be brought, during trial discovery can be made, etc, but whatever liability is ultimately found is covered by the US Govt.

So

I doubt it can be stopped

All of congress is far too afraid of voting down any "war on terror" legislation regardless of its legality. This is going to pass because if they vote no and a terrorist attack occurs before the election, they are effectively committing political suicide. No amount of calling in or e-mailing is going to change this. Bye bye 4th amendment, it was nice knowing ya.

Ummm...

Debate is happening on it RIGHT NOW [cspan.org]. As I'm writing this, they're voting on whether to table the Judiciary Committee version (the good one).

Contact your senators immediately! If the JC version gets tabled, there's still hope of getting the Intelligence Committee version amended.

Gov't site to help you contact your policritters

Write Your Representative (wyr): https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml [house.gov]

Write your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/How_to_contact_senators.htm [senate.gov]

Democracy - use it or lose it!

Doubtful

I'm not expecting this to fail. There's a lot of lobbying and a lot of money involved. As an employee of one of the telecoms, I can say there's a lot of push from the executive branch (White House) to push this, because a lot of these illegal orders came from them. And before 9/11 even. At least one of ours came in February of '01.

20-seconds to send your senators feedback

It took me twenty seconds to "say something" to my Senators, thanks to the EFF: https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=339&pg=makeACall [eff.org]

US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9

If this bill becomes law, the law itself will ALSO be unconstitutional. See article 1, section 9 of the US Constitution: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

In other words, no law may alter the legal status of acts that took place after the fact. This part of the Constitution usually protects legal acts from being criminalized after the fact, but the opposite also holds.

Please participate, it's easy

I've said this enough times already, but why not one more. I called my good Senator Herb Kohl's office and had a nice, easy, polite conversation with one of his aids. You see, the way the system works is that a Senator's aids develop opinions on an issue, largely based on what kind of feedback they get from the voting constituency, and the Senator asks them what he should think. This is primarily because there are so many issues in front of a Congress-person there's no way to know them all.

I've said this before too: if you feel too nervous about it, take a shot of vodka. You may not be a big drinker, and there's no reason to get smashed here, but everybody feels more like voicing their opinion after that. I've also said this before: the aids get calls from so many bona fide crackpots that you are going to be like a ray of light in his/her day. Just say what you think in a nice, calm way, e.g., "I really don't think telecoms need to have any special immunity. If they haven't done anything illegal, the courts will find that out in due time (and with due process)." If you can remember to cite the bill in question, that impressed the aids a bit more, because they know you're informed.

In this particular case -- telecom immunity -- I got a letter back describing in detail why Senator Kohl thinks the telecoms don't need any special immunity. It was a great response, and of course I'll be watching to see how he votes, but really the process from my part is complete: either he votes the way I told him "we the people" want, or I organize votes against him next election. That's he way the process works. You must get involved if you want results, and the good news of that is it is quite easy to become involved. It just takes a few minutes a week to stay on top of news and ring your elected officials

Summary misses the point

Yeah, yeah, it's cheaper for telecoms to buy a few senators than it is to fight a few supposedly meritless lawsuits, but that is NOT the reason almost all Republicans are on board with this bill. George Bush says American lives will be lost if the bill doesn't pass, yet has threatened to veto it if it does not contain immunity provisions. Are we to believe that he values telco's money more than American lives?

The truth is that this legislation would make GEORGE BUSH retroactively immune from prosecution the felonies he committed in ordering illegal wiretaps.

We've all heard the lines/lies: the taps were started after 9/11 (lie: the started in Feb 2001), taps would have prevented 9/11 (obvious lie for more reasons than I care to enumerate), without this law it's impossible to tap terrorists (lie: there are numerous ways to still tap them, including FISA, this bill just allows innocent Americans to have their 4th Amendment rights violated), without illegal warrantless wire taps there is no way to tap a terrorist in a timely matter (lie: FISA laws allow taps to be in place for 72 hours before requiring and sort of paperwork or warrant), etc. etc.

As far as I can tell, there are two possible explanations for all this:
1) Every single Senator and Congressman in favor of this is completely ignorant of the law and has been completely deluded by the afore mentioned lies
2) They know Bush needs retroactive immunity or he and other Republicans are going to prison.

Frontline's "Cheney's Law"

The signing statements alone should have buried these people - still, nothing is being done to this day.

Frontline's "Cheney's Law":

"After Sept. 11, Cheney and Addington were determined to implement their vision -- in secret. The vice president and his counsel found an ally in John Yoo, a lawyer at the Justice Department's extraordinarily powerful Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). In concert with Addington, Yoo wrote memoranda authorizing the president to act with unparalleled authority."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/view/ [pbs.org]

This should open a few eyes.

Even if I'm shot, the hospital could still remove

Even if I'm shot, the hospital could still remove the bullet.

Re:Even if it passes the the supreme court can sti

Even if it passes the the supreme court can still trun the law over.

This SCOTUS? With Roberts and Alito?

Here is the essence of the situation. In eight years of wanton fuckery, the Bush Administration, getting expert legal opinion from treasonous criminals like Abu Gonzales, Harriet Meiers, John Yoo and others have stacked the Supreme Court with men who believe that the Constitution is a mere temporary hindrance to the exercise of executive power. You may remember John Yoo as the Justice Department lawyer who wrote an opinion, at Dick Cheney's request, asserting that it is not illegal to torture children as young as 8 years old.

This is why presidential elections are so important. Elections have consequences and one of them is the appointment of Supreme Court Judges. Keep that in mind when you make your voting decision. Who do you trust not to appoint pricks to the Supreme Court? With 4 members over retirement age, if the next president is a Republican, we might have a bench made up of a bunch of Clarence Thomases and Sam Alito - guys who believe there is no right to privacy.

And in regard to the right to privacy: even if you don't believe it is spelled out in the Constitution, and many very smart legal minds believe it is spelled out there, it is certainly part of the Common Law upon which all of our laws are based, going back to the Magna Carta. I don't know about the rest of you, but I really don't want to see a legal principal of a man being the "king of his own castle" thrown out by some GOP lickspittle after nearly a thousand years.

You know what's funny?

You know what's funny? Isn't the Right that used to always say "Beware the Liberals. They want to empower Big Brother to watch over everything you say, everything you do. Only we Conservatives stand between them and your privacy. Only we Conservatives will keep the government out of your lives."

What happened? I used to be a registered Republican. What happened to the Republican ideal of smaller government. Less regulation? Less interference in our private lives? Are there any non-Neocon/non-evangelical Republicans left? I'd rather four years of Dennis Kucinich or Al Sharpton...

Re:You know what's funny?

Are there any non-Neocon/non-evangelical Republicans left?

You may not agree with all his personal beliefs, but Ron Paul [wikipedia.org] is the best hope for reducing the size of the Federal government.

Re:Why shouldn't the telecoms be immune?

Why should the burden be on the telecom to verify that all the legal crap had gone though?

Because that's the way things go. The 'paperwork' is called a warrant. If it's been approved, it's very easy to show a copy of said warrant with the judge's signature on it to the telecom folks when you come to request a tap. The only case where it would be 'difficult' and a 'burden' to verify whether a warrant exists for the wiretap is if it's not supposed to be there at all.

Re:Why shouldn't the telecoms be immune?

My understanding was that the NSA and FBI went to the telecoms and said "place these wiretaps" without properly going through whatever legal bullshit they have to go through. The telecoms agreed, presumably under the assumption that the government had all their paperwork done properly.

In that situation, the telecoms are already immune. If the telcoms thought that the government had the appropriate warrents/legal authority to ask for the wiretap, current law makes them immune. The time that the current law does not protect them is if the were not acting in "good faith". Which is a fancy way of saying that a reasonable person in their situation, giving the government the benefit of the doubt, would believe that it was a legit wiretap.

So FBI agent goes to AT&T, and says "wiretap person X." AT&T is immune to any lawsuits, because a reasonable person would trust the FBI agent to have a warrent. However, if an FBI agent goes to AT&T and says "wiretap everyone with an 'X' in their name", AT&T would be required to refuse until more legal documents support the request.

(IANAL).

Re:Why shouldn't the telecoms be immune?

My understanding is that the telecoms thought what they were doing was legal. So why not offer them immunity for a simple misunderstanding...?

I already explained with the first two links in the story. If the telecoms act in good faith, believing what they are doing is legal, and it turns out not to be, then they are already immune from both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits.

Back in October, Glenn Greenwald interviewed [salon.com] Cindy Cohn of the EFF. As Cohn pointed out, the argument you give here was exactly the one that the telecoms tried to make to Judge Walker, who ruled [eff.org]:

...because "the very action in question has previously been held unlawful," AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.

They knew it was illegal at the time. Now they want retroactive immunity.

Re:Why shouldn't the telecoms be immune?

Not all the telcoms complied with the goverment, because there was no warrant - QUEST communciations did not comply http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/15/amnesty/index.html [salon.com] which makes you wonder why ANY of the telcoms complies - you need a warrant, period - we do not live in a country where if the goverment asks to go through your house or records you have to assume the goverment has a right to do that - if we did this would be an authoritarian goverment where everything the goverment does is by definition legal. Also, if you read the article, you will learn the Bush admin. was asking for warrantless searches to telcom records BEFORE 9/11 - if that doesn't doesn't bother you I don't know what does.

Re:I actually don't care...

Then you aren't paying attention.

First, please note that the immunity extends to wiretapping of digital communications.

Also, you may not have heard about Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act [democracynow.org], which basically makes it illegal to have an opinion deemed "extremist."

And the worst part is that the term "extremism" is so vague and poorly defined that it is open to any interpretation by those in power at the time [commondreams.org]. You could awaken one fine morning at 4am and find the FBI raiding your home, on the grounds that your self-proclamation of "infinite wisdom" on slashdot clearly marked you as an "insurgent intellectual."

I wish I was entirely joking.

Re:I actually don't care...

O.K. Fine.

And what if said person can not hire a decent attorney? Or worse, is detained incommunicado as a "terrorist", and is not given access to one?

What if no one knows of their incarceration?

A more chilling scenario: does the law not apply to judges, too? What if a judge were arrested for ruling in an extremist manner?

Do you really think that *this* would be enough to rouse the American people? Unless large numbers of them were so treated. I'd expect many would try to avoid "trouble".

Of course, all this is unconstitutional. But, do not think that words on parcement are enough to stop men with guns.
 

Re:Mod Article Troll

That's a little like suggesting that in the case of a homicide if there's a chance that it was justifiable (such as self defense) then a person should be immune from prosecution since it could cost a person a lot of money to defend themselves against it. (Please note I am not talking about cases where it seems almost certain that it was justifiable, just that there was a chance it might have been).

If the telcoms were clearly acting in good faith then they can file a motion for dismissal. It doesn't really cost them much money at all (in relative terms) to do so. If it isn't so clear then why should they automatically be immune to prosecution?

Re:Tell him to call Rick Boucher

"Well, primarily they are that congress doesn't have the ability to restrict the president from doing his constitutional duties as commander in chief. And among those duties would be collecting battlefield intelligence. Now argue how silly this sounds to you all you want, but the FISA laws were specifically wrote to exclude taping foreigners outside the country because it was within the presidents realm of protecting the country."

Oh, really? Sorry, that's the legislative branch "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;"
A fact that would be, well, obvious to someone that was reading the whole thing, not just the parts they wanted.

The rest of your post is just silliness - These were wiretaps that occurred in the U.S. - To put it simply, THATS THE FUCKIN' POINT! As a U.S. citizen, I have 4th amendment protection, a fact that was recognized by the courts and the FISA law back in the 70's. It doesn't matter if I'm talking within the U.S. or not, *I* have a constitution, and to eavesdrop on my conversation, you need a warrant - hence the FISA law, and the FISA court - a body that, by odd coincidence, is *very* easy to get a warrant out of.

Except that GWB can't be bothered, and he told people to tap phones . . . without a warrant. Didn't plan on getting one either, despite having provision for getting them after the fact when it's too important to stop and get a warrant - like say, when a terrorist makes a call inside the U.S.

So he said "screw warrants, I'm the president, do it!", and they did, knowing it was illegal. And now we have to deal with that in one of two ways - we can be men about it, and deal with these companies that broke the law and follow where that leads, or we can be pantywaists that can't deal with the concept that it might lead to the President breaking the law, and cut it off before it gets that far.

You're in the pantywaist crowd - I can get that. It's a scary world out there, with bad people in it.

Still, I think you're in the wrong country for it - if you want to live someplace where the law is subject to the needs of the head of state, there are plenty of choices for you.

But don't try to sell some "Oh, we're the realists, and you could never manage without us real men!" BS. Just get the fuck out and go someplace 'safe' where a dictator tucks you in bed and protects you from the evil terrorists. They'll be happy to have you.

Oh - and don't sit there and call yourself "sumdumass", and then whine when someone mentions it. My IQ was evidently sufficiently high not to call myself "Some Dumb Ass" and expect nobody to notice. Admittedly, that doesn't require a *huge* amount of insight, so all we know for sure is on person is dumb enough to pick that moniker, and the other is at least ever-so-slightly smarter - I could be pretty damn dumb, and still be smarter than "sumdumass".

'Nuff Said about that.

Pug (Who has no objections advertising he is homely, but at least ever-so-slightly smarter than some - [G])