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Court Orders White House to Disclose Telecom Ties

Posted by Zonk on from the fess-up-to-it-boys dept.

rgiskard01 writes "Glenn Greenwald is reporting at Salon.com on a win for the EFF, in the battle for clarity regarding the telecom surveillance scandal. A federal judge ordered the Bush administration yesterday to accede to the EFF's Freedom of Information Act request. Assuming the White House follows the court order, they would have to make public their lobbying ties to the telecoms industry. 'These disclosures will reveal ... which members of Congress McConnell and other Bush officials privately lobbied. As an argument of last resort, the administration even proposed disclosing these documents on December 31 so that -- as EFF pointed out -- the information would be available only after Congress passed the new FISA bill. The court rejected every administration claim as to why it should not have to disclose these records.'" Greenwald goes on to argue that the order should be leveled against Senators as well, to get a sense of who else is in Ma Bell's pocket.

9 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. They'll ignore the court order... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They think they are above the law already.

    1. Re:They'll ignore the court order... by __aawbkb6799 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Im not sure if they can, given the atmosphere of lame duck surrounding the administration right now. Approval ratings in the 30s and a hellacious economy going into the xmas season, it would seem like a battle not worth fighting... for right now at least. But then again, the likelihood that any action will be taken before the end of the administration seems slim; I can see them just playing out the clock for 417 days...

    2. Re:They'll ignore the court order... by Nimey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The Bush admin are masters of stonewalling and delaying tactics. I'd be pleasantly stunned if this happens.

      You *know* they're going to appeal this to the federal appeals court, and if they lose that one the Supreme Court will take quite a while to make a ruling, and there's a certain chance that the Supremes will make some bullshit ruling about how the EFF doesn't have standing rather than rule on the actual crime.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    3. Re:They'll ignore the court order... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What happens when they do ignore the court order? Nothing?

      Pretty much. Undoing things and removing people in power is incredibly difficult in Government, not necessarily because the procedures are long winded, but because its a representative democracy so the people can't do it themselves.

      If someone commits a crime against you, you can't put them in jail yourself, you can't seek charges against them yourself, ect. You have to have the police arrest them, but there's no rule saying the police have to arrest someone, either. So you really have to find a cop who's willing to go to the trouble to arrest them, and a prosecutor who will attempt to prosecute them. Of course, these are these people's jobs, but the fact remains they don't always do them.

      It's the same with government. Even if there's an overwhelming amount of evidence the president did this or did that, and those things are illegal, they don't automatically get in trouble for it. Congress has to agree that the action was serious enough to warrant them getting off their asses to do something. And with party politics you'll have a bunch of people who will agree with the president and therefore feel he's doing nothing wrong, even if law books say he is. So they wont want to do anything, and without the needed majority agreement nothing will.

      And the crook gets away with it.
    4. Re:They'll ignore the court order... by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Repeat after me: Bush != conservative.

      But he calls himself one, and so do all his fans.

      I would consider myself a "conservative" because I'm generally comfortable with things working the way they did most of my life as I was growing up. Unfortunately the people now usually referred to as "conservatives" want to restore the world to the way it was a hundred years before any of us were born (according to a grotesque understanding of history which considers the Founding Fathers as Christian ayatollahs with beliefs that apparently contradicted all the writings they left behind). These people are "conservatives" in the same way that the "National Socialists" were "socialists". So I don't call myself a conservative, and I pay no attention to the "true" meaning of the word since it's commonly understood as meaning its antonym. The meanings of words change over time, and when the meaning of my self-description changes, I start describing myself differently.

  2. constituents by ryen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Once all the greed comes out, how will the EFF get that information into Joe-citizen's hands in time for elections and voting (and not just the tech-community and other usual suspects).

    1. Re:constituents by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As it currently stands, the Democrats control both houses of Congress and are poised to pass a telecom-immunity bill. So voting to maintain Democratic control is not going to do anything there. Voting to switch control to the Republicans, meanwhile, will probably also not improve matters You know, I was thinking about this the other day while researching the presidential candidates. None really fit what I want. Ron Paul seems like the most interesting one to me because he's big on smaller government and returning power back to the states. To bad he comes across as a bit of a nut job. Hilary is just too socialist. Obama doesn't seem to know what he wants to run on. The other Republicans and Democrats seems mostly interchangable with each other to me. I'm thinking what we need is a candidate that is not part of the current establishment. Someone like a Arnold who would show up and question everything instead of doing something because that's the way it's always been done. Why do we have a 'war on drugs'? What has it solved? Is it worth it? Does the tax code need to be so complicated that we have to spend billions of dollars to enforce it? What are the goals in Iraq? Where are we currently? Can they even be achieved?

      I'm just totally fed up with both sides, and have no idea how to approach the problem of voting next year. I agree with something I heard once. "Anyone who wants to be President should automatically be disqualified from every becoming President."
  3. Why isn't this done allready? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Is there any reason that doesn't involve corruption we can't know what corporate/other representatives our elected officials are meeting with?

    It seems like most of the time these meetings couldn't involve national security(I would go so far as to say most things don't, whatever they claim), so why are they secret to begin with?

  4. No, Washington runs on money. by xC0000005 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    and logic says that if you are a congress man living on lobby money then you don't want a clear paper trail, because it will make it harder to get more of that wonderful pony sweat. Logic says that the man who makes the laws should work to protect his own interests as often as he can without completely alienating the plebes who vote him in based on his name recognition.

    --
    www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.