Fourth Amendment for Sale

Wondering if there’s any possible argument in favor of granting retroactive immunity to the enormous telecommunication companies which broke crystal clear laws by wiretapping American citizens without any warrants?

Well, wonder no more. Here you go. This sums it up pretty durn well.

There is an honest way to argue in favor of telecom amnesty, and it is, of course, exactly what amnesty advocates like the WSJ, Andy McCarthy, Jay Rockefeller and the rest of them desperately avoid. This is the only honest case one can make for this radical gift to telecoms:

Yes, telecoms violated multiple federal laws by enabling government spying on Americans and turning over communications data without warrants. They broke these laws not only in the aftermath of 9/11, but for years and years. By breaking these laws, they reaped enormous financial profits, as the Government paid them huge fees for their cooperation in the illegal spying program. Despite their having broken multiple federal laws and having committed felonies -- while reaping great profits in the process -- they ought to be granted retroactive amnesty and immunized from any consequences for their lawbreaking, otherwise they may be reluctant to break our laws in the future.

The telecom amnesty debate is controversial but it is not complicated. The Government asked telecoms to break numerous federal laws in exchange for profit. Some telecoms refused to do so and others -- such as AT&T and Verizon -- agreed to break the law for years. Which behavior do we want to encourage and reward -- (a) telecoms which turned down the substantial government contracts to enable warrantless spying on Americans because doing so was illegal, or (b) the telecoms which purposely broke our laws by allowing illegal government spying on Americans? How can that even be a debatable question?

As the Senate votes on amnesty tomorrow, the only real question is whether telecoms which broke our laws should be accountable in a court of law for their illegal behavior (the way things are supposed to work in a country that lives under the rule of law) or whether Congress, lavishly funded by this industry, will pass a law that has no purpose other than to give them the retroactive license to break our country's laws with impunity.

I would only add that evidence strongly suggests they may have also broken the law before September 11th which would, of course, completely invalidate any and all even half-assed arguments in favor of retroactive telecom immunity, as they clearly didn’t do it out of patriotism in that case...and it clearly didn’t keep us from getting attacked.

What’s more, these oh so patriotic companies? They turned off the wiretaps when the government got too delinquent paying the bills.

So. Not so patriotic—just greedy. As usual.

And how important were those wiretaps if the Bush administration couldn’t even be arsed to pay for them? Clearly, either they weren't, or once again, the Bush administration doesn’t really give a rat’s ass about our security.

Everyone once in a while, I think I can’t possibly get outraged anymore, that we’ve gone so far down the rabbithole that I’m just spent.

And then I learn, to my disgust and horror and relief, that no, the capacity’s still there. I just wish I didn’t keep finding it out.