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Telecom Companies Seek Retroactive Immunity
kidcharles writes "Newsweek reports that a secretive lobbying campaign has been launched by telecommunications companies who are seeking retroactive immunity from private lawsuits over their cooperation with the NSA in the so-called 'terrorist surveillance program.' Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has claimed that lawsuits could 'bankrupt these companies.' The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against AT&T over their cooperation in the domestic spying program. EFF legal director Cindy Cohen said of the lobbying campaign, 'They are trying to completely immunize this [the surveillance program] from any kind of judicial review. I find it a little shocking that Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on.'"
Why is anyone surprised Congress would be hushing this up? If the companies get sued for huge sums, then where will they get money to bribe congressmen?
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
A small clause that says, if you pay your bill, you give up the right to sue for civil rights claims against them.
Much like the clauses they stuffed in previous bills that said you give up the right to sue as part of class action cases against them, and you would elect to using arbitration.
What would happen to any other group of people that committed large-scale spying on the people of the US?
Why should corperations be free from punishment for committing crimes, especially if it is in association with a branch of the government?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
First, ALL companies participated in this program. To not do so, would have jeopardized their gov contracts. A major reason why the gov spreads the wealth around is because then the companies are beholden to them. Imagine what would have happened to Verizon or QWest(yes, qwest did not par ticpate in a few minor parts) if they had not? Not only would they have been denied future contracts, but they would have lost major gov contracts and probably a number of other contracts dealing with companies who are very dependant on the feds. For QWest alone, they would have lost no less than 20% of their business. Verizon would have lost a great deal more. What is shocking is that this is in the open.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Change the Federal Tort Claims Act or whatever else needs to be changed so we can sue the government back into accountability.
It is the US government that needs to be sued and payout damages to everyone that has been unconstitutionally spied on.
Article 1, Section 9: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. My understanding is that an ex post facto law works both ways: You can't make illegal activities that were legal in the past; nor can you make legal activities that were illegal in the past. In other words, you can't change the legal status of actions in the past.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
You're not really understanding the situation. AT&T didn't say, "Hey, let's spy on our customers, and ask Bush if we can do it." That's not how his happened.
What actually happened was King George II told AT&T and other companies: Let us into your networks. We say so. We have the guns. If you don't comply, then you'll be branded as terrorists.
And yes, you can say that AT&T and such should not have complied, but nobody outside of the top brass at AT&T know what they were threatened with. Maybe they were given payment, maybe they weren't. Of course, the government won't release any of that information, so nobody will ever know.
I don't respond to AC's.
Since it would save them from going bankrupt and thus is worth money to have the immunity... how about a trade: Retroactive immunity that only applies up to this point, in exchange for net neutrality? They give up the profit of double-dipping in exchange for not going bankrupt.
I find it a little shocking that Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on
Then either you don't live in the US, or you are under the age of 12. Congress is as crooked as any major corporation, and anytime they want to do something like this they just duplicate The Bush Maneuver..."its for National Security".
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
You know, I really really REALLY hate to say this...
But these guys were just following cues from the NSA. They should be given immunity, and the people in charge who allowed the NSA to solicit these companies into doing illegal wiretapping should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law -- and if it's not very illegal, the law should be changed and they should be prosecuted above and beyond the full extent of the current law.
It's been a long time.
There are no trades to be made here. They should be held fully responsible for their past transgressions, and net neutrality should be made mandatory. It's as simple as that.
It would be greatly satisfying to roast them over Congressional coals, but with immunity they're more likely to cooperate with agencies that have reason to investigate abuses of power.
Not a ray of sunshine, put at least it's the crack of dawn...
I don't understand. the ability to sue is fundamental. you may not WIN and even if you win you may not be able to actually COLLECT, but to deprive the ability to even raise the issue in court?
;(
trim our constitutional rights, much, congress? oh right - its a quaint old doc, isn't it.
a law suit would be meant to show that the public does NOT approve of this. we can't get this on a voting initiative, we can't get our congress people to REALLY represent us, we really have NO ONE to speak for us! this is very scary.
and now we may have no one (in court) to hear us, even IF we are allowed to speak.
we need the ability to at least question a behavior. that's one purpose of a lawsuit. and if the lawsuit finds that the telecoms should not have rolled over and violated the assumed trust of its customers, then I hope they DO go out of business! let some other newcomer join the ranks and maybe they won't make the same mistake, for fear of getting THEIR hands spanked.
to remove the _chance_ for punishment of entities that do wrong - that, itself, is quite unamerican. (then again, the concept such as 'gag orders' and 'sneak and peek' warrants also seem quite unamerican to me, but they still exist in today's america)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It's actually in the long-term best interests of all companies to *not* have this immunity.
This just enables a form of government interference in corporations that is even worse than regulatory laws. Regulations get made in the open and are subject to lobbying and court rulings. Whereas the NSA warrantless spying amounts to the commandeering of the corporate assets and procedures and is enforced by secret laws that (apparently) cannot be challenged in court in any reasonable way.
Even with recompensation that returns a profit on investment, this is a bad deal for corporate independence.
revolution.
YEAH!
DO IT! Bankrupt the Bitches!
Restart the New World Order, not their fucked up version.
All those fuckers should be SHOT for TREASON!
ALL of them.
Greedy bastards getting rich off of our backs, and then wanting immunity for illegal spying?
Come on people develop some spine and go after the true TERRORISTS.
I find it a little shocking that Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on.
And do you also still believe in Santa Claus?
Why should you worry about privacy if you have nothing to hide?
The kind of people I see worrying about privacy obviously worry because they're doing something wrong. Besides, privacy doesn't exist today. A loss of the illusion of privacy is worth it when you see that we are fighting increased terrorism.
Anonymous Coward 2.0 Sig:
--
Madonna is the best! Madonna is like the C programming language. http://www.madonna.com/
And Government is the biggest bully of all.
Imagine playing a game where if the other side is losing they get to rewrite the rules of the game in their favour - retroactively if necessary. They have done it before, and they will do it again. The terrorists have already won. Our own governments have destroyed our freedom on their behalf, and it doesn't matter anymore who wins "the war". John Q. Public loses either way.
My rights don't need management.
Possibly even some kind of deterrent to keep foreign powers at bay. Something big and scary... perhaps an arsenal of scary things might be enough to make sure no one even seriously talks of making a move.
You can't take the sky from me...
Of course, it's all part of the conspiracy, what with a large convicted monopoly based there.
Why has the bush administration kept pressing so hard for the retroactive immunity for the telcos, but has not expended the effort to get Qwest involved?
Maybe it's because they don't want the NSA to actually figure out that the terrorists are based in Redmond.
Note for astromods: Before you mod this down, ask yourself if you really are thinking outside the box, or if you are just part of the problem.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Has McConnell et. Al brought up the issue of retroactive immunity before a congressional hearing? Its starting to get old and others seem to be catching this nasty meme.
...
We can't say anything about what we're doing because it will help the bad guys. Oh and by the way *we* (Can we say conflict of interest??!) reviewed all 50 or so lawsuites pending and believe none of them have any merit... Regardless we desperatly need to grant retroactive immunity to all those telephone companies that have helped us. Doing this is necessary to help ensure that none of our secrets come to light in unecessary court cases and prevent companies from thinking twice before helping us again.
WHAT IF
The government has illegally infringed on the privacy of Americans. Invoking "state secrets" and quashing legal challenges to its actions would seem to me to be an effective way of ever having the truth come to light.
On these grounds its imperative we don't grant any government institution the ability to design and explot loopholes allowing it to effectivly circumvent either the constitution or checks and balances regardless of what we may think about them or what they may honestly believe their intentions to be.
Those spouting that carriers had no choice is interesting.. Even the government has to get service from someone? Telcos do have leverage and lobbiests and communicate with each other on a regular basis.
Note carefully: this is not about declaring previous behavior to be retroactively legal, it is about passing a new law that would wipe out current lawsuits. This is different, and it has been done many times in the past. (After 9/11 a new law was passed to prevent thousands of expected lawsuits from being filed by victims' families.) This approach can serve a useful social purpose if used approriately, and the question is whether the tactic is appropriate to protect heavily-regulated companies who may have "over-cooperated" with government.
BTW it's good that you know the constitution because the 'ex post facto' thing is emphatically not dead, which probably led to the end run described in the article.
Cheers, Toliaro
And what is morally right in your book? That they should be immune or that they should not? Because from my book, giving them immunity is incorrect. By saying that they would not give up info AND then doing so, that makes them immoral. The funny part about this, is that I am guessing that you are either a far left winger who has no clue about reading what I wrote, or you are one of my freaks who is a far right winger, and does not have the nads to say who they are (typical right winger; brave until they have to put it on the line).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If this bill passes into law (and isn't struck down by the Supreme Court), then for all intents and purposes, the Constitution of the United States is null and void.
There, I said it. Words cannot adequately describe how disgusting I think this is.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
The Democrats are rushing this through because they were shocked by the reaction to their passing the Protect America Act last session -- everyone slammed them for giving new surveillance powers to the White House, and so they're scrabbling to fix matters with a new bill.
But they're making the same mistake again. They think no-one cares about immunity. They think it's just a business-as-usual deal.
Please call Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and let them know that you're angry at the idea of giving retroactive immunity to the telcos, and by extension, participating in a cover-up of the warrantless wiretapping project. It's not that they're wedded to this idea, it's that they don't think their base or independents care about telco immunity.
Call Rep. Nancy Pelosi -- 202-225-4965
Call Sen. Harry Reid -- 202-224-3542
If you want more facts and arguments, EFF has them here.
A couple more notes, for those who like the grubby details. The telcos are pushing for complete retroactive immunity, or alternatively "substitition", by which the government takes the place of the telcos as the defendant in the case. The government has a lot more power to evade the cases by dint of its own in-built immunity to some kinds of prosecution and thus end the cases. A few other groups are suggesting financial caps of penalties, so that the cases could go forward, but if the courts found the telcos guilty, they wouldn't suffer the "crushing liability" they say the cases would cause. (Note that the only way the telcos would *actually* be fined a large amount of money by our case would be if they were guilty of blanket, system-wide surveillance of all their subscribers.)
Thanks.
Yeah... the government has the telco industry in bed with it. This is because the telco industry lobbies the government to regulate telcos. Big government is bad for the market and big business LIKES big government because big government can regulate and legislate in favor of big government thus stifling the competition.
The only person who has promised to do anything about this is Dr. Ron Paul who is running for President. If you want to stop this nonsense, I suggest you Google Ron Paul.
Libertas in infinitum
So our clueless administration is following in the footsteps of Tricky Dick Nixon; cover up, cover up, oops...
It didn't work very well back then, and it's not going to work very well today either. Too many people know about what they're trying to hide.
I hadn't thought about this before, but I'm now wondering if GW is going to finish his second term. History is repeating itself...
If you don't have anythign to hide, what are you afraid of?
This argument seems to have lost a great deal of lustre. While it never held any water with me, it seems the whole country was under the spell of "support the president, or else!" from 2002-2006.
You can make constitutional arguments, political arguments, national security arguments, etc. but the whole issue comes down to this - how much privacy should the average citizen consider reasonable?
Somehow in the last few years the expectation of privacy has dwindled to almost nothing. The fact that the telcos are lobbying for retroactive protection is no surprise. They did some very questionable things under the guise of national security and now are facing consequences for doing so. They have the resources to lobby and everyone else is doing it.
Frankly, I hope they don't get any protection and that they do lose an absurd amount of money - maybe the next time our nation is facing down some arbitrary and imagined enemy corporate america will think twice before just blindly ignoring the responsibility they have to their customers.
Not any more.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If my ISP recieves a legitimate order to hand over information (warrant) or spy on me (wiretap) they'd do it and what would be a crime if they did it for anyone else is accepted as legal because the investigative power of the government trumphs normal privacy law.
Yes, the government is special, it is governed in what it can do by the Constitution of the USA! Seeing as how there was no judicial review what the Bush admin did was unconstitutional. They should all be taken out and treated like the enemies of the USA they are. What they did was no better than what the Gestapo did.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I find it a little shocking that a Democratic Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So, in your world the Nurenberg defense should have worked?
So - what is the big surprise?
Garry ~ skilful.com
"I find it a little shocking that Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on."
....
A strong central government can keep the public morally-emaciated and demurely-obedient to spin-history which supports fraud-dogma/myth.
The Corporatist States of America (CSA) must protect and defend the corporate-soul against all enemies foreign and domestic. Net-Nepotism, Corporate farm subsidies, "Let them eat cake" economics, affordable sovereign-immunity justice
!HAVEFUN! I am so very god-damn glad, I ain't got kids for future CSA exploitation, and I'll hopefully be dead before the enslavement/holocaust of the children today.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The NSA rears it's ugly head, removes the mask it's been hiding behind all these years!
But what if I want to sue for breach of privacy? What's my defense? Al Queda?
The only thing shocking about this was it was news a year and a half ago and some of you just are hearing about it now.
...that part of the reason for this is that National Security Letters were used to help obtain compliance from these corporations. The NSLs' built-in gag orders means that the companies cannot mention them in their legal defense; thus, seeking immunity so as to avoid being stuck without any defense (except to explain what happened, then go to federal prison for violating NSL gag orders).
In one corner, the Constitution of the United States of America.
In the other, a tag team of a pile of steaming money and power, supported by apathy and fear.
According to material on the EFF.org website, QWEST is the ONLY major telephone company that stated it would not comply with data gathering unless they were presented with a warrant.
The international oil companies are going to get their share of Iraqi oil once the region stabilizes.
Hey, have you checked the price of a barrel of oil lately? Checked oil company financials? They don't need to wait to get their share of the loot until the part of Bush's plan is supposed to magically bring stability to the Middle East, which is good for them.
Instability in the Iraqi oil flow serves them perfectly by making the oil they're pumping elsewhere more valuable. Besides, that oil at least officially belongs Iraq so there's going to be a cut taken. As long as their other oil fields keep producing, they make ridiculous amounts of money (and have been since the war started). Halliburton gets the contract to repair the pipelines every time they get blown up, so there's profit for business cronies coming and going.
The enemies of Democracy are
You couldn't be more wrong; repealing a law does not count. Besides, it's civil immunity, not a criminal law, so the Constitution doesn't even come into play anyway. Stick to linux, not law.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
because if you don't have privacy, you cannot have a secret.
So, if there IS no privacy, there are no secrets and no trade secrets either. So maybe the secrecy laws should be tossed out too...
Assuming that your country has a population of 20M, as mine does, and you pay the mean level of tax, then you only pay 0.000005% of that, the rest being paid by everyone else. Since the very richest people will not sue the government, and those earning below average will not be able to afford to sue the government., you might be paying 0.00001%, but that is still a big win, and is peanuts compared to the lawyer's fees. Given that the population of the USA is about 250M, an American would expect to be paying about 0.00000001% of his payout in taxes (the average American would be paying 0.000000004%, but I am assuming that he would be spending more than the average American and thus paying more taxes). Since lawsuits are not about punishment, but about compensation (or profit, depending on how you see it), suing the government is perfectly reasonable.