Website review: House: Dont bow to Bush -- Newsday....
rodneyj43 discovered this in Politics
•2 reviews since Feb 28, 2008
politics
•newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vptele285593819fe...
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rodneyj43 discovered 3 months ago- Now we're starting to get the hint that the mainstream news media might actually be treating this like a story! (Oh why can't the populace just eat what the media feeds them, so they can can make more advert dollars?). I guess there's enough public interest in the story, and the white house sure has been talking about it a lot lately, even during press conferences for other things entirely. Seriously though, I don't agree with one sentiment of this article about shielding the telecoms from financial liability. Financial liability is a subset legal responsibility in this case and the telecoms need to pay up. If they don't the whole fight will be for something less than a slap on the hand and a kiss on the forehead if the telecoms cry a bit. We *really* can't have this happen again, and that means tough penalties. The house needs to stand firm, call the president's bluff and complete the investigation that will determine what laws were broken when and by whom. These class action court cases against the telecoms will be very revealing as to exactly what process took place to carry out the wiretaps and how normal procedures were circumvented (procedures that people noticed, like Quest's CEO Joseph P. Nacchio noticed that weren't being followed and refused to cooperate with the government on legal grounds). From the page: "Washington is tied in knots over whether to bar angry customers from suing telecommunication companies for giving government agents access to their overseas telephone calls and e-mail, without court warrants. President George W. Bush said he'll veto any bill setting rules for government eavesdropping that doesn't include retroactive immunity for the companies. The House has refused to provide that immunity. It should hold firm or, as an alternative, find a way to shield the companies from financial liability without absolving them of legal responsibility. Bush has stonewalled congressional inquiries about the constitutionally suspect warrantless wiretapping it conducted in secret for years after 9/11. The 40 lawsuits now under way may be the only way the public will ever know if the White House and the companies involved broke the law. The companies were placed in a tough spot when pressed to cooperate with the surveillance. The pressure had to be enormous. And officials assured them that what they were asked to do was legal. But that was, and is, far from clear. The program has been engulfed in controversy since 2005 when its existence was revealed by The New York Times. A strong case can be made that it violated the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants to monitor anyone inside the United States. Congress amended FISA in August, when it enacted the Protect America Act to keep the law abreast of changing technology. But the update was contentious, so Congress decided it should sunset after six months. The law lapsed this month, and reauthorization bills passed by the Senate and House differ, most importantly, on immunity for the telecoms. The Senate would provide it, the House would not. Bush has been over the top in seeking the legal shield. He said that without retroactive immunity, the companies won't cooperate and intelligence gathering will be devastated. But the law allows ongoing snooping to continue for a year. And new operations can be launched legally under FISA as it existed before August, or under a new amendment without immunity. FISA needs to be updated. But the White House and the telecoms should be held accountable if they illegally invaded the privacy of millions of customers.
