Telecom CEO's deserve Medal of Freedom

[Erik von Nein]

Why? For cooperating wtih the federal wiretapping program, of course!

REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Telecom Patriots
November 3, 2007; Page A8

The latest Presidential Medals of Freedom will be presented Monday, and the eight on this year's list are all deserving. They include Brian Lamb, the founder of C-Span, and Oscar Elias Biscet, the Cuban human rights activist who won't be able to accept in person because he's in one of Fidel Castro's prisons.

But here are two suggestions for the next list: CEOs Randall L. Stephenson and Ivan Seidenberg, of AT&T and Verizon, respectively. They deserve recognition not so much in their own right but as representatives of the telecom companies that cooperated with the federal government's terrorist surveillance program in the weeks immediately after 9/11.

Changing technology means that the U.S. National Security Agency can no longer monitor terrorist communications merely by pulling microwaves from the air. Our world of packet switching and fiber cable means that the NSA needs access to the telephone company switching networks to track terrorist plans. When President Bush and the Attorney General requested such cooperation in late 2001, the companies responded despite what they must have known was some legal risk if the public's terrorism fears subsided.

And, sure enough, the companies now find themselves the target of lawsuits for having cooperated in this surveillance. Congress may or may not provide them with legal immunity from these suits, and if they don't get it the companies could face a decade of legal harassment and expense before they ultimately prevail. One irony is that Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest Communications International who was convicted of insider trading, is now being widely praised in the press because he says he was punished by the government for refusing to cooperate with a surveillance program before 9/11. The feds deny any link.

America would be a more dangerous place if businesses refused to help protect America because they feared a lawsuit, or negative publicity. We hear a lot from critics that corporations need to be more public spirited, and this is a case in which they clearly were.

In case anyone was still worried about what Fox News owning the Wall Street Journal would do for their jouranlistic slant.

[[R_H]]

America would be a more dangerous place if businesses refused to help protect America because they feared a lawsuit, or negative publicity. We hear a lot from critics that corporations need to be more public spirited, and this is a case in which they clearly were.

That last blurb just jumped out at me. Public spirited? WTF, that's just comedic gold. Sucking Bush/Cheney cock = more public spirited. That's just hilarious. "Remember kids, unquestionningly supporting your government is a sign of public spirit. Slavery is Freedom and War is Peace."

[Pulp Hero]

I thought the article was an attack on the choice of giving them the award until that last paragraph. Man, that was seriously jarring.

[Gullible Jones]

This is really sickening. I'll be quite glad to see the current crop of scum leave office.

(And I second the "WTF" pertaining to the last paragraph. It reads like it was inserted for publicity reasons or something.)

[Mr Bean]

First Presidential order of business, de-establish Medal of Freedom, get all current medals returned, melted down and used for something useful, like new bedpans for Walter-reed. Considering the number of complete Bush hacks who's he's given it to, it's removed all semblance of meaning from the award.

[K. A. Pital]

I'd say you give them Freedom Fries instead of a medal. That'd be lots cheaper and have the same meaning - zero.

[Stark]

I say give them a Freedom Medal, make it one of those absurdly huge star things like kings and Stalin used to like, and make it treason to not wear it all the time.

That'd be FUNNY. Are you embarrassed of your Freedom Star, citizen?