Domestic Spying & Telecom Amnesty: the Bigger Issues
Posted by D. Cupples | The Bush Administration wants "to immunize past illegal conduct... because they know that it was illegal conduct." That's Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy's take on President Bush's fight to give immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that helped the Administration spy on Americans. (WaPo-1)
Immunity would keep lawsuits out of court, along with evidence of what the Administration has done. It also could save law-breaking telecoms money.
Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which includes "telecom amnesty." Yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CN) put a hold on the FISA bill; Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to ignore the hold. (The Hill and Salon)
The domestic-spying controversy is about more than whether nosy government staff listened to Biff and Betty's nightly phone sex. It's about potential law breaking, lying, and corruption on the part of government officials -- people who are supposed to protect us citizens from such things...
Law Breaking
Days ago, we learned that Bush Administration officials reportedly tried to coerce a telecom company into violating laws -- using $100+ million federal contracts as leverage (WaPo-2). To grasp the grave potential for abuse that arises when government officials disregard laws to promote their own agendas, we need only look 35 years back in our nation's history.
In 1971, no one dreamed --
- that a U.S. President's teammates had stolen f a psychiatrist's files, seeking dirt to discredit a citizen who had evidence that officials had lied about a war.
- that Administration officials arranged for spying on journalists and political enemies via break-ins and wiretapping.
- that such terrifyingly illegal schemes (and the cover-ups) involved the U.S. Attorney General, White House Counsel, White House Chief of Staff, FBI agents -- even some of the President's campaign advisers.
No one dreamed such abuses of power were occurring, until the Watergate scandal broke in June 1972 (see Watergate refresher). And we may not know the worst of it, because President Nixon resigned before impeachment and received a pardon.
Fast forward to the new millennium: if Bush Administration officials violated some laws while engaged in domestic spying, the next logical questions are: What other laws have they violated? To promote what agendas? Who suffered as a result?
Lying
The Bush Administration's once-secret domestic spying programs became public in 2005 (USA Today). Since then, officials have repeatedly claimed that domestic spying grew out of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Recently released evidence suggests that the Bush Administration sought one telecom company's help getting Americans' private records without court approval months before 9/11.
In January 2006, President Bush said this about the surveillance program:
"This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America. And I repeat, limited. And it's limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within the United States. But they are of known -- numbers of known al Qaeda members or affiliates." (Press conference)
In June 2007 we learned from an internal audit that the FBI engaged in domestic surveillance and might have violated laws and its own rules 1,000+ times. (WaPo-3)
This month, we learned that Verizon (America's second-largest telecom) had repeatedly given Administration officials domestic customers' records since 2005 and did not try to determine whether the requests were legal. (see WaPo-4 and Verizon's letter to congressional committee.) Verizon said that the FBI sought data not only on a customer making a call, but also on all the people that customer called -- and the people those people called.
Was all of that information related to terrorism? If not, for what purpose did Administration officials seek Americans' private records?
Corruption
Citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Wired pointed out some uncanny coincidences:
"Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) is reportedly steering the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee to give retroactive immunity to telecoms....
"Top Verizon executives, including CEO Ivan Seidenberg and President Dennis Strigl, wrote personal checks to Rockefeller totaling $23,500 in March, 2007. Prior to that apparently coordinated flurry of 29 donations, only one of those executives had ever donated to Rockefeller....
"In fact, prior to 2007, contributions to Rockefeller from company executives at AT&T and Verizon were mostly non-existent. But that changed around the same time that the companies began lobbying Congress to grant them retroactive immunity from lawsuits seeking billions for their alleged participation in secret, warrantless surveillance programs that targeted Americans."
The money flow doesn't prove anything, but it's enough to make us wonder how much influence people can have over public policy simply by pouring money into politicians' campaign coffers.
Other BN-Politics' Posts:
* Bush & Senate Republicans Protect Telecoms, Soil Privacy Rights
* U.S. Intel Chief Made False Statements re: Domestic Spying
* Senate Passes Bush's Domestic Spying Bill
* Connecting Some Domestic-Spying Dots
* Domestic Spying Started Before 9/11, and Money Changed Hands
Considering that this case is already in litigation, amnesty has the effect of being an ex post facto law, penalizing those citizens who are supporting the lawsuit. With Joe Nacchio, it could strip him of a defense for his conviction. For the couple who were prosecuted for providing to Jim McDermott a recording of a call of Gingrich planning to violate his sworn promises to the House Ethics Committee, this is a clear statement that some people are above the law, and ordinary citizens are beneath it.
To provide amnesty at this late date is an expression of deep contempt for the law. It is lawlessness.
Posted by: Charles | October 20, 2007 at 12:11 PM
As usual, Charles, your analysis is dead-on.
Posted by: The Crux | October 20, 2007 at 01:25 PM
As usual, Charles, your analysis is dead-on.
Posted by: The Crux | October 20, 2007 at 01:25 PM