US Telcos: Don't know anything about domestic spying, guy

[Xisiqomelir]

Bloomberg

Phone Companies Refuse to Provide Data on Spy Program (Update1)
By Neil Roland

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Three of the largest U.S. telephone companies declined to answer lawmakers' questions about Bush administration efforts to spy on Americans' phone calls and e- mails, saying the government forbade them from doing so.

``Our company essentially finds itself caught in the middle of an oversight dispute between the Congress and the executive relating to government surveillance activities,'' AT&T Inc. General Counsel Wayne Watts said in a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee that was released today by the panel.

Verizon Communications Inc., the second largest U.S. phone company after AT&T, and Qwest Communications International Inc., the fourth largest, also declined to answer many of the committee's questions.

Among the questions, posed by the committee on Oct. 2, were what information the carriers gave the administration without a court warrant, whether they were paid for any of it and whether the administration asked them to install equipment to intercept e-mails.

John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee, and other Democrats called on the administration to answer questions about the spying.

``The water is as murky as ever on this issue, and it's past time for the administration to come clean,'' Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who leads the panel's telecommunications subcommittee, said in a statement.

State Secrets

Verizon and Qwest said the Justice Department prohibited them from offering any substantive comment on their roles in the spy program. AT&T said Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell invoked the state-secrets privilege to prevent the carrier from commenting.

McConnell's spokesman, Ross Feinstein, said in an interview today that the House and Senate Intelligence committees have the authority to oversee intelligence activities under the 1947 National Security Act.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined immediate comment. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment.

Verizon did answer a question from lawmakers about whether the administration asked it to provide ``communities of interest,'' the network of people with whom particular phone customers were in contact. The New York Times reported last month that the FBI had sought details on these networks.

`Calling Circle'

Verizon said the administration asked it to identify a `calling circle' for some telephone numbers. The carrier told the committee: ``Because Verizon does not maintain such `calling circle' records, we have not provided this information in response to these requests.''

Congress approved a temporary measure in July allowing spy agencies to continue intercepting, without a court warrant, phone calls and e-mails of foreign-based terrorists that are routed through the U.S. Lawmakers currently are working on new surveillance legislation.

McConnell acknowledged the existence of the program in August and said telecommunications companies should be given immunity from lawsuits claiming privacy violations. AT&T, Verizon and other carriers are being sued for providing customer information to the government.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democrats' No. 2 Senate leader, said last week he will resist the administration's demand for immunity for the carriers.

Now, as any reader of G&C knows, I'm no fan of US Telcos, but this is pretty fucking low, even by their miserable shitty standards.

[SirNitram]

If this is a legal program, why do you require immunity?

Oh wait. Only idiots have believed this was legal.

[Xisiqomelir]

Fuck

Senate and Bush Agree On Terms of Spying Bill
Some Telecom Companies Would Receive Immunity

By Jonathan Weisman and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 18, 2007; Page A01

Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government's domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.

Disclosure of the deal followed a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull a competing version of the measure from the floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and GOP parliamentary maneuvers.

The collapse marked the first time since Democrats took control of the chamber that a major bill was withdrawn from consideration before a scheduled vote. It was a victory for President Bush, whose aides lobbied heavily against the Democrats' bill, and an embarrassment for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had pushed for the measure's passage.

The draft Senate bill has the support of the intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), and Bush's director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. It will include full immunity for those companies that can demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United States.

Such a demonstration, which the bill says could be made in secret, would wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants. Bush had repeatedly threatened to veto any legislation that lacked this provision.

Senate Democrats successfully pressed for a requirement that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court review the government's procedures for deciding who is to be the subject of warrantless surveillance. They also insisted that the legislation be renewed in six years, Democratic congressional officials said. The Bush administration had sought less stringent oversight by the court and wanted the law to be permanent.

The domestic surveillance issue has been awkward for Democrats since the administration's secret program of warrantless counterterrorism surveillance became public in late 2005. In August, a coalition of Republicans and dissident Democrats passed a measure backed by the White House that put that program on firm legal ground by expressly permitting the government to wiretap foreign targets without a court order, including, under certain circumstances, when those targets are communicating with people in the United States.

But Democratic leaders insisted that the law expire in February, so they could try again to impose more restrictions on the administration's ability to spy domestically. Most Democratic lawmakers and party members -- backed by civil libertarians and even some conservatives -- wanted the new legislation to ensure for example that future domestic surveillance in foreign-intelligence-related investigations would be overseen by the foreign surveillance court. The court was created in response to CIA and FBI domestic spying abuses unmasked in the mid-1970s.

But conservative Democrats worried about Republicans' charges that the Democratic bill extended too many rights to suspected terrorists. "There is absolutely no reason our intelligence officials should have to consult government lawyers before listening in to terrorist communications with the likes of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and other foreign terror groups," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

The measure "extends our Constitution beyond American soil to our enemies who want to cut the heads off Americans," said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.).

An adroit Republican parliamentary maneuver ultimately sank the bill. GOP leaders offered a motion that would have sent it back to the House intelligence and Judiciary committees with a requirement that they add language specifying that nothing in the measure would apply to surveilling the communications of bin Laden, al-Qaeda or other foreign terrorist organizations.

Approval of the motion would have restarted the legislative process, effectively killing the measure by delay. Democratic leaders scrambled to persuade their members to oppose it, but with Republicans accusing Democrats of being weak on terrorism, a "no" vote proved too hard to sell, and so the bill was pulled from the floor.

Stacey Bernards, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), called the Republican maneuver "a cheap shot, totally political."

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, called it a "perfect storm" of progressive Democrats who did not think the bill protected basic constitutional rights and of Republicans who took advantage of the lack of unity. "It was too precipitous a process, and it ended up in a train wreck," she said. "It was total meltdown."

The House bill contained safeguards against spying on U.S. citizens that the Bush administration said would have interfered with its national security investigations. Some liberals, on the other hand, complained that it still allowed the surveillance of Americans to occur without individual warrants.

It would have empowered the special surveillance court to issue warrants allowing the government to intercept for up to one year the phone calls and e-mails of groups of foreign targets, such as al-Qaeda or Hamas, without requiring that the surveillance of each person be approved. If the foreign target of the surveillance was calling a person in the United States significant enough also to be deemed an intelligence target, then an individual warrant would be required, as provided under past law.

The bill would have required the court to review the government's surveillance procedures to ensure that they were designed to target only people outside the country. Such reviews could be delayed up to 45 days after surveillance began in emergencies. It also would have barred warrantless physical searches in the United States, including of homes, offices, computers and medical records, and made clear that the National Security Agency and the CIA could not eavesdrop on targeted Americans, even those abroad, without a traditional court warrant.

It was unclear late yesterday whether similar provisions are included in the Senate version of the bill that attracted bipartisan support from lawmakers and key intelligence officials.

The Senate deal was reached after the White House made available to the intelligence committee some of the documents underlying the administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program, to encourage the panel to include the telecommunications immunity provision.

Democrats warned yesterday that the Senate intelligence panel's consensus bill must gain the approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman and ranking Republican have said, like their House counterparts, that they are wary of granting immunity to telecommunications companies.

In June, the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the documents underlying the warrantless surveillance program, and Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking Republican Arlen Specter (Pa.) said they wanted to see those documents before endorsing any immunity clause. "I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke and commit to retroactive immunity when I don't know what went on" in the past, Specter said Tuesday on CNN's "Situation Room." "I agree with Arlen," Leahy said on the program.

Thanks for your cooperation with the NSA, boys! Don't worry about those squawking peasants, we'll take care of it for you.

[SirNitram]

This one is unconfirmed(As the only one's reporting it are the blog that dug up alot of the attorney firing dirt, and Dodd's campaign website), but a hold has been placed on the bill due to the telecom immunity provision cooked up by the intel committee.

[Elfdart]

If Dodd blocks it, he just won my vote.

Funny thing is, the Cheney-Bush Junta wanted illegal spying back in February of 2001, which is when they started leaning on the phone companies to help them.

[SirNitram]

If Dodd blocks it, he just won my vote.

Funny thing is, the Cheney-Bush Junta wanted illegal spying back in February of 2001, which is when they started leaning on the phone companies to help them.

Is there anything supporting that other than Qwest's guy saying so? He's not precisely the most reliable witness.

Either way, this bill is now in procedural hell. In the House there's a 'motion to recommitt promptly' with some BS language invoking the Tawwawist Boogeman.

[Elfdart]

I thought there was, but the anonymous source quoted in Slate could just as easily be the Qwest guy himself. Knowing what we know about how the Bush Crime Family operates, it's not exactly far-fetched.

[Xisiqomelir]

Interview with EFF attorney heading up the case against AT&T

The truth about telecom amnesty
An interview with the lead counsel in the AT&T case reveals how much misinformation is being disseminated about telecom amnesty.

Glenn Greenwald

Oct. 17, 2007 | Today I interviewed Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the lead counsel in the pending litigation against AT&T, alleging that AT&T violated multiple federal laws by providing (without warrants) unfettered access for the Bush administration to all telephone and Internet data concerning its customers. The Bush administration intervened in that lawsuit to argue that the "state secrets" doctrine compelled dismissal of the lawsuit, but the presiding judge, Bush 41-appointee Vaughn Walker, last year rejected that argument and ordered the case to proceed (Oral Argument on the administration's appeal of that ruling was heard by the 9th Circuit earlier this year).

The EFF/AT&T lawsuit -- based in part on the testimony and documentation of Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee -- will entail an investigation into the extent to which AT&T and other telecoms enabled the Bush administration to spy illegally on their customers. As of now, these telecom lawsuits are the best (arguably, the only real) hope for obtaining a judicial ruling as to whether these surveillance programs were illegal. Precisely for these reasons, the Bush administration is demanding "telecom amnesty" -- to bring a halt to EFF's lawsuit and thus ensure that no investigation of its spying activities on Americans ever occurs, and that no ruling is ever obtained as to whether it broke the law.

I found this interview extremely illuminating, and it reveals just how much misinformation is being disseminated by amnesty advocates. I will post the entire podcast and transcript when it is available, but wanted to post some key excerpts now:

* * * * *

GG: The lawsuit you originally brought was against only AT&T and not against the Bush administration or any government officials. Is that correct?

CC: Yes. We brought the case only against AT&T because AT&T has an independent duty to you, its customers, to protect your privacy. This is a very old duty, and if you know the history of the FISA law, you'll know that it was adopted as a result of some very deep work done by the Church Committee in Congress, that revealed that Western Union and the telegraph companies were making a copy of all telegraphs going into and outside the U.S. and delivering them to the Government.

So this was one of the big outrages uncovered by the Church Committee -- in addition to the rampant surveillance of people like Martin Luther King.

As a result of this, Congress very wisely decided that it wasn't sufficient to simply prevent the Government from listening in on your calls - they had to create an independent duty for the telecom carries not to participate in illegal surveillance.

So they are strictly forbidden from handing over your communications and communications records to the Government without proper legal process.

* * * * * *

Regarding the 9th Circuit appeal and what is at stake in these cases:

GG: If you were a Bush administration lawyer coming out of that Oral Argument, you would be far from confident that the 9th Circuit is going to dismiss the case?

CC: I think that's a fair characterization.

GG: And so, as we sit here now, with the Bush administration demanding amnesty for telecoms -- including AT&T and the other telecom defendants in these various lawsuits - there is a very real prospect, as of this moment, that the case you brought against these telecoms will go forward, and will entail an investigation into what these telecoms have been doing vis-a-vis surveillance of Americans -- is that true?

CC: I think that's true. . . . The courts will be able to look pretty deeply into what the phone companies have been doing. It may not be the case that the rest of us will know all of it. But what we will know at the end -- and what I think is critically important -- is whether it was legal or not.

GG: There will be a judicial ruling, assuming your case goes forward, as to whether or not the activities the telecoms engaged in, in concert with the Bush administration, actually broke the law?

CC: Yes - and that I think is tremendously important even if we don't end up knowing every nook and cranny of what the Government has been doing.

The FISA law really makes it illegal for the phone companies to give this information to the Government, and what the Government does with it afterwards isn't really relevant to our claim.

We have evidence of an NSA-controlled room in the Folsom Street AT&T facilities in San Francisco. We have evidence that AT&T diverted copies of everyone's Internet traffic into that room. And we know that there's very sophisticated equipment in that room that is capable of doing real-time analysis of the Internet traffic that is getting routed into there.

For most of our legal claims, that's enough to win, and we're done.

GG: Let's talk about those allegations. Your lawsuit, if it proceeded, would necesarily require an investigaiton into those allegations -- namely, into whether there was a secret room built, whether AT&T was providing unfettered access to the NSA, whether they were turning over this data. You would have to prove those allegations in order to prevail, right?

CC: Yes. . . . in that regard we already have AT&T internal documents that lay out the schematics of how this is happening and AT&T has authenticated these documents. They filed a motion with Judge Walker saying that those documents are their trade secrets and to say that, they had to say they were true. . . . The evidence we already presented and the fact that AT&T authenticated them takes us, if not all the way there, pretty darn close.

* * * * *

The impact of amnesty on these investigations:

GG: So, if Congress were to enact a law providing amnesty to telecoms -- something like the Bush administration is demanding, whereby the telecoms would receive retroactive amnesty -- that would essentially put a halt to your lawsuit?

CC: We would certainly argue that it didn't, but it's fair to say that it would put a pretty large hurdle in front of us for going forward. . . .

GG: But you would expect AT&T's lawyers and the telecom industry to argue that the amnesty they got from Congress does in fact bar those claims as well?

CC: Yes. Their goal is plainly to get rid of these litigations full stop. They don't want the courts to ever rule on whether this is legal or not. That's their goal. . . .

It's certainly the goal of the administration and the phone companies to ensure that there's never a decision about what's been going on is legal or not. The telecom cases are the last, best hope.

GG: In all of these cases that might result in an adjudication as to whether the surveillance programs were illegal, the Bush administration has been actively invovled in trying to block these cases from proceeding at all?

CC: That's right - they made the same "states secrets" argument as they made in our case in all these other cases as well.

GG: And having lost the "state secrets" argument in your case, and also in the ACLU case originally, they're now attempting to put a stop to these cases through the amnesty law that they're seeking?

CC: I think that's right. They're afraid. I think it's fair to say that they're worried they're not going to win with the rules of the game as they were set up at the time they started spying on everyone. They're running to Congress to try to change the rules of the game going forward, and trying to cover up what's happened in the past. And the question is - - is Congress going to go for this?

* * * * *

The passivity of Congress:

GG: The claims by Mark Klein about what AT&T was doing - do you know, has he ever testified before any Congressional hearings or spoken with any Congressional Committee as part of any investigations that they've done into these claims?

CC: I know he hasn't ever been asked to testify in front of Congress. I know he would be willing to testify, I know he'd be very eager to tell his story to Congress.

GG: Well that's why I'm asking. These are pretty extraordinary claims that he's making, and yet -- not only during the time that the Republicans were in control of the Congress, but even for the 9 months that Democrats were in control -- there have been no formal Congressional hearings, Committee investigations, in which they asked him to come and testify about what he knows. Is that right?

CC: I think that's right. And I think that as we've been talking to members of Congress about the immunity provision, as the amnesty provision has been moving to Congress, it's shocking to me that they don't know what Mr. Klein has told a federal judge.

It's been on Frontline, and it was on a whole bunch of things -- you've been talking about it -- but there's a sense that members of Congress don't understand the kind of wholesale dragnet surveillance that Mr. Klein's evidence demonstrates . . . It's undisputed, this evidence. They have never said that Mr. Klein is lying or that the documents are phony.

To the contrary, AT&T itself said they were all true and were trying to argue that they were their trade secrets and we should have to give them all back. It's undisputed evidence and it is surprising that Congressional members still don't know about it and haven't asked Mr. Klein to come tell them himself.

* * * * * * *

Claims of telecoms' "good faith":

GG: One of the arguments that the telecom industry is making, and that advocates of telecom immunity or amnesty are making, is that these telecoms acted in good faith when they did what they did, and so it's unfair to punish these companies -- even if they technically broke the law -- because they were acting in good faith, acting as what the Washington Post Editorial Page described as good "patriotic corporate citizens" trying to protect the country. I have two questions about that:

(1) is it true that under the law, if they can prove they acted in good faith, then at least for the statutory claims, there won't be any liability?; and,

(2) aren't those claims, those arguments, that they're making now [about their supposed "good faith"] ones that they made before Judge Walker, that he rejected, when he refused to dismiss the case against them?

CC: Yes and yes. To answer your first question: the FISA law already has very broad immunities for the telecoms, and if it was the case that they were acting in good faith with an honest belief that what they were being asked to do was legal, then they would already have immunity, and they don't need an additional immunity from Congress for that.

And it's also the case that they made all these arguments to Judge Walker and Judge Walker's decision on this addresses those arguments very directly -- he said no reasonable phone company in the position of AT&T could have thought that what they were being asked to do was legal. It is not the case that this phone company could have believed that the wholesale surveillance of millions of its customers for five years, six years and counting, could be legal under the law.

Remember, these phone companies are very sophisticated about these FISA laws and the other laws that explain how and when they can cooperate with law enforcement. These aren't some rouges. This isn't Joe's Phone Company. They are very sophisticated and know the law better than almost everyone.

But even if they didn't, I don't think it takes a lot of thought to wonder: "huh, the FISA law says that the exclusive means by which the Government can get information is either by a warrant or a short-term certification from the Attorney General in an emergency situation. Huh - do either of these two things justify ongoing wholesale surveillance of all of our customers for five years and counting?"

The answer to that has to be "no." I don't think you even need a law degree to figure that one out.

* * * * * * *

The motives for the telecom lawsuits:

GG: John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, was on Fox News on Sunday arguing for telecom immunity, and this is one of the things he said in explaining why he believed in amnesty: "I believe that they deserve immunity from lawsuits out there from typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of the American companies."

Is that an accurate description of your lawsuit and your organization?

CC: No, we are not plaintiff's attorneys. . . . He's welcome to come and visit our offices and if he still thinks that we're rich plaintiffs' attorneys after he's visited our little tiny Mission Street offices, then I have a bridge to sell him. We're a small, struggling non-profit with a very tiny budget - and we're doing this because we're committed to protecting people's privacy in the digital age.

GG: I don't know the salaries of EFF lawyers and I'm not asking that, but I assume it's true that there are all kinds of private sector opportunities and large corporate law firms in San Francisco where lawyers working in those places are making a lot more money, and if EFF lawyers were motivated by the desire for profit -- as Mr. Bohener dishonestly suggested -- there are a lot of other jobs that you could get that would pay a lot more money.

CC: Oh yeah, absolutely. And in fact, our lawyers are just the opposite. Most of the EFF lawyers worked in those big fancy firms for big fancy salaries, and took big paycuts to join us, because they wanted to do personally fulfilling work and feel like they were making the world a better place.

What I tell young lawyers who come to me and say: "I really want to work for EFF - you have such great lawyers," I say: "take your current paycheck, rip it in three pieces, take any third, and that's about what you'll get working for EFF." The lawyers who work for EFF are making some of the biggest contributions to this organization, because they are making far less than they could on the open market in exchange for being able to work on things they believe in every day.

Stick it to 'em, Cindy!

[Ender]

If Dodd blocks it, he just won my vote.

Dodd put a hold on it. Reid overrode it. But Wyden put a very simple, unambigious poison pill ammendment on it stating that American citizens cannot be spied on regardless of geographic location that basically neuters the entire got damn thing. Bush will have to veto it

[Uraniun235]

From what I'm hearing, the amendment actually only requires the government to obtain a warrant... but it's still enough for Bush to throw a bitch fit and threaten to veto it.

[SirNitram]

The Senate is playing for 'points', though who the hell Reid is thinking he's scoring for is lost on me. Passively obey the holds of the other side without question, but override your own? Whaaaa?

The House has put this one on ice. To recommitt promptly means it fires back to the committee to put in a new amendment.. Which is a load of bullshit anyways. It will be a while until it's all sorted out, and the GOP will continue rending their hankerchiefs at the mean, mean democrats.

[Alan Bolte]

From what I'm hearing, the amendment actually only requires the government to obtain a warrant... but it's still enough for Bush to throw a bitch fit and threaten to veto it.

Can't he just ignore that part by 'interpreting' it to mean the opposite of what it says? Or is there some legal cleverness he'll actually have to abide by for whatever reason?

[SirNitram]

From what I'm hearing, the amendment actually only requires the government to obtain a warrant... but it's still enough for Bush to throw a bitch fit and threaten to veto it.

Can't he just ignore that part by 'interpreting' it to mean the opposite of what it says? Or is there some legal cleverness he'll actually have to abide by for whatever reason?

See, you have to understand the man we're talking about. Allow me to find the appropriate quote.

That’s why the president has a veto. ... And that’s why when I tell you I’m going to sprint to the finish, and finish this job strong, that’s one way to ensure that I am relevant. That’s one way to ensure that I’m in the process. And I intend to use the veto.

He wishes to be seen as 'relevant', ergo, he vetos.

What vetos are these, that make him relevant? Blocking stem cell research, withdrawl from Iraq, and childrens healthcare, all popular things with the electorate. In short: 'WAAAAH! YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME!'

[Durandal]

Boy, Harry Reid, you're sure putting all that tough talk about "no more blank checks" into action, aren't you? Is it just me, or are the House Democrats the only ones with any real balls? The Senate just seems to be uniformly made up of assholes (with the notable exception of Chris Dodd).

[CmdrWilkens]

My only hope right now is that the manuevering will delay any action until AFTER the 9th circuit has ruled on the case. At that point the case for no immunity will either be moot or pointless.

[SirNitram]

Boy, Harry Reid, you're sure putting all that tough talk about "no more blank checks" into action, aren't you? Is it just me, or are the House Democrats the only ones with any real balls? The Senate just seems to be uniformly made up of assholes (with the notable exception of Chris Dodd).

There's a few other exceptions, but by and large, the Senate seems to be the most infected with the 'Bipartisanship is needed' and 'Bipartisanship means doing what the GOP says' memes that resonate in the D.C. echo chamber.

[Elfdart]

My only hope right now is that the manuevering will delay any action until AFTER the 9th circuit has ruled on the case. At that point the case for no immunity will either be moot or pointless.

No necessarily. Congress has the power to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and Dubya's supreme court is likely to give the Junta what it wants in light of the new bill.

[Durandal]

My only hope right now is that the manuevering will delay any action until AFTER the 9th circuit has ruled on the case. At that point the case for no immunity will either be moot or pointless.

No necessarily. Congress has the power to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and Dubya's supreme court is likely to give the Junta what it wants in light of the new bill.

They can also set the size of the court. And I'd be willing to bet that if the Democrats win the presidency in 2008 and maintain control of Congress, they'll be expanding the size of the court by a judge or two to balance the court back out so they can maybe undo some of the damage Bush has done.

[Flagg]

My only hope right now is that the manuevering will delay any action until AFTER the 9th circuit has ruled on the case. At that point the case for no immunity will either be moot or pointless.

No necessarily. Congress has the power to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and Dubya's supreme court is likely to give the Junta what it wants in light of the new bill.

They can also set the size of the court. And I'd be willing to bet that if the Democrats win the presidency in 2008 and maintain control of Congress, they'll be expanding the size of the court by a judge or two to balance the court back out so they can maybe undo some of the damage Bush has done.

That really needs to be done, anyway. Nothing crazy like FDR tried to pull, but a good 4-6 more judges should do it.

[CmdrWilkens]

My only hope right now is that the manuevering will delay any action until AFTER the 9th circuit has ruled on the case. At that point the case for no immunity will either be moot or pointless.

No necessarily. Congress has the power to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and Dubya's supreme court is likely to give the Junta what it wants in light of the new bill.

My point was that if the bill doesn't pass before the 9th circuit rules then whoever is arguing for the side which wins the court case will have a HUGE boost to their side. If the 9th rules against the Telcos then privacy rights folks will have a huge case that the courts are already finding corruption and we shouldn't stop them while if the courts rule against them immunity backers will state that immunity will prevent future frivolous lawsuits. Basically if the bill is stalled then at least the 9th will get to rule on the matter and let the facts have their day in an actual court not in the midst of backroom politicking.

[Xisiqomelir]

Bump for tragedy.

WaPo

Senate Protects Telecom Immunity in Spy Bill

By William Branigin and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; 2:53 PM

The Senate voted today to preserve retroactive immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with a government eavesdropping program, decisively rejecting an amendment that would have stripped the provision from a bill to modernize an electronic surveillance law.

Senators voted 67 to 31 to shelve the amendment offered by Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). A filibuster-proof 60 votes had been needed for the amendment to move forward.

The vote represented a victory for the Bush administration and a number of telecommunications companies -- including AT&T and Sprint Nextel -- that face dozens of lawsuits from customers seeking billions of dollars in damages.

Approval of the amendment would have exposed the companies to privacy lawsuits for helping the administration monitor the calls of suspected terrorists without warrants from a special court following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The amendment was one of a series the Senate is considering today to modify legislation that would extend the government's authority to carry out electronic surveillance against targets outside the United States.

President Bush has called on Congress to rapidly renew the surveillance authority granted to the federal government in the Protect America Act approved last year. But he has vowed to veto any bill that does not shield the companies that helped the government carry out the warrantless wiretapping program he ordered after the Sept. 11 attacks.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed against U.S. telecommunications companies by plaintiffs who alleged that the firms' actions violated wiretapping and privacy laws.

Immunity from such lawsuits must also be approved by the House, which does not provide such protection in its version of the bill.

The Senate bill is aimed at modernizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The Protect America Act last year gave the government expanded authority to carry out surveillance, but its provisions expired Feb. 1. Congress and Bush agreed to an extension that runs out Friday.

In debate on the Senate floor before the vote, Dodd said it was a bad precedent to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies, and he urged senators to "allow the courts to do their job."

Arguing against the amendment, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said that permitting lawsuits against the companies would lead to public disclosure of vital intelligence-gathering methods and would discourage the private sector from cooperating with the government in the future. He said the companies facing lawsuits had acted "in good faith," and he called the immunity provision "an essential part of this bill."

Seventeen Democrats and one independent joined 49 Republicans in voting against the Dodd-Feingold amendment. Among those voting with the majority was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is battling for the Democratic nomination, voted in favor of the amendment. His chief rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), did not vote.

Civil liberties groups denounced the Senate's action.

"When companies break the law, they should be held accountable by our government -- not given a multimillion-dollar favor," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office. "The millions of Americans who are telecom customers deserve to know that their phone conversations are private."

In a statement, she charged that telecommunications companies "illegally turned over private customer call information to the government." But instead of "having faith in the U.S. court system to fairly handle these cases," she said, the Senate opted to "give the telecom providers a get-out-of-jail-free card."

The Senate today also rejected two other amendments aimed at diluting the immunity provision. One would have allowed the lawsuits to go forward but would have made the federal government--not the telecommunications companies--the defendant in those cases. The measure, co-sponsored by Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), was rejected 68 to 30.

The other rejected amendment, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would have authorized the secret FISA court, which oversees federal surveillance of foreign intelligence and terrorism suspects inside the United States, to decide whether a company could be sued for providing customers' records to the government. It was defeated by a vote of 57 to 41.

Bonus points to Obama for being our guy and trying to uphold the law and oh look, Hildawg doesn't want to bite the corporate hand that feeds her, but she doesn't want to shill quite so openly as Feinstein, so she comes to a happy compromise and just doesn't bother showing up to the vote. How cute.

[SirNitram]

Hopefully the House holds on this. They've been a reliably stronger position than the Senate, run by that fucker, Reid.

[Turin]

Bonus points to Obama for being our guy and trying to uphold the law and oh look, Hildawg doesn't want to bite the corporate hand that feeds her, but she doesn't want to shill quite so openly as Feinstein, so she comes to a happy compromise and just doesn't bother showing up to the vote. How cute.

I'm not sure I'm reading the article right... but I think Obama voted to continue to give telecoms immunity in this case. I'm not sure I'd call that "upholding the law."

[Turin]

Fuck. I'm an idiot. Nevermind.

[Sriad]

Does the Legislative Branch even HAVE the power to shield entities from lawsuits? That sounds a little (read: absolutely) like a corrupt and unconstitutional aberration from the separation of powers.