Democrats holding immunity for telecoms hostage

NY Times:

Whether telecommunication utilities should have legal immunity for having helped the National Security Agency conduct eavesdropping without warrants emerged on Tuesday as the pivotal issue in the debate over wiretapping powers.

The Bush administration, urged by the telecommunication industry, is pushing hard for Congress to include immunity for past actions in any package to protect them from a series of civil suits.

House Democrats promised on Tuesday to block any deal for immunity unless the White House agreed to turn over internal records showing the utilities’ role in the eavesdropping.

President Bush secretly approved the program weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Without the records, “to give immunity at this point in time would be a blind immunity,” the House majority leader, Steny D. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, told reporters.

The telecommunication industry, while keeping a low profile on its role, has mounted a vigorous campaign behind the scenes to win over Congressional supporters. The effort has considerable support among Republicans, but winning over moderate Senate Democrats may ultimately prove critical.

Telecommunication utilities have been major donors to candidates. AT&T is the second-biggest donor since 1989, contributing $38 million to candidates, including many of the lawmakers active in the eavesdropping debate, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The companies, including AT&T and Verizon, face numerous federal suits by privacy advocates and others who say they participated in what amounted to illegal eavesdropping.

The administration says the suits could bankrupt the utilities, and it has tried to invoke the “state secrets” privilege to turn them back. But a judge in California rejected that, and an appellate court is expected to rule soon on the question.

If the administration and the utilities succeed in gaining retroactive immunity from Congress, that would make the suits essentially moot.

It would also forestall any possibility that any officials or the utilities could be criminally prosecuted for their roles in the program, a prospect that has worried some officials if a Democrat is elected president next year.

...

Marinate that last sentence for awhile. Democrats would consider prosecuting officials or companies who cooperated in attempting to stop terrorist attacks in this country. Is there any greater difference in the parties? Is there a better case for who favors terrorist rights and who favors stopping the terrorist? It is just totally outrageous that Democrats would even consider such a case. It is just one more example of why they should not be trusted with national security.

Meanwhile, Republicans have vowed to oppose the Democrat drafted bill. "If the Democrats reopen the critical intelligence gap we closed over the summer, Republicans will fight and win the same battle we've already fought and won on behalf of the American people," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner said.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more