Telecom Immunity Showdown in the Senate Today

CPeanutG writes "A make-or-break moment for telecom immunity has arrived — after months of back-room committee-meetings, the FISA bill will finally reach the Senate floor on Monday! Unfortunately, a previously-reported version of the bill that grants telecom immunity will be presented to the Senate on Monday morning. The clock is ticking. Write your Senators now."

Comments

Re:Heard on the radio this morning

[iminplaya]

That's not hope. That's a distraction. The simple fact is that if you work as an agent of the government, no matter what capacity, then the constitution must apply. But we don't even require that the government itself operate under its constitutional restrictions, so what does it matter? There should be NO immunity! Ever! As the authoritarian apologists tell tell us, "If you don't like the law as it stands, then change it."

All we are is farts in the wind

Re:Nice exclamation point

[Elemenope]

IIRC, if the gov't asks them to eavesdrop on a citizen, they become an agent of the state, and as such cannot legally abridge 4th amendment protections. The Government cannot end-run the protections by asking someone else to do it for them. If they could, the Constitution wouldn't be worth the paper its printed upon.

If on the other hand, the telco volunteered without prompting such information, then yes, there would be no violation. That is soooooooo not the case here.

Re:no immunity?

[russ1337]

I think that not granting immunity would be unfair to those telco employees who would be convicted. I do think that any immunity granted should be only to the telco employees, and should only be for past incidents. Big brother should be slapped down, but those he coerced should be let off the hook this time and this time only.

Yes, but it was THOSE telco employees who had the authority to act for the Company in these matters and handed over the information WITHOUT A WARRANT. The people approached for the information would have known what the rules were, and decided to (or were coerced into) providing the information without a warrant. If they were unsure on the legalities (while being coerced), then then company Legal should have been bought in.

Only by these individuals being held accountable in some way, will it send a message to business that individuals acting on behalf of the organization have to act within the law. If they were 'coerced' using illegal threats, then the individuals within the Govt agency responsible should ALSO be held accountable. And this may weigh into the severity of the punishment the company reps receive.

Until INDIVIDUALS are held accountable, then Companies and large corporations will continue to break the law, presumably hoping the fine isn't too severe when/if they eventually get caught.

Re:no immunity?

[tommyatomic]

Corporations are immune from crimal proscecution it is only civil charges that can be filed against them which bears financial penalties. IANAL But I am fairly certain unless you murder someone or steal something on the behest of your corperation your pretty much free and clear; its the corperation that is responsible for your actions that they dictate. The only people who are harmed by making corporations copable for their own actions are the shareholders which hopefully will encourage shareholders to only promote people with better ethics or better common sense in regards to covering for their lack of ethics with pseudo ethical behavior. To the telco employee's concerned about criminal issues repeat these words "They forced me to do it. I didnt want to spice that fiber but the well-being of my career and my family was at stake. The CEO MADE ME DO IT." Unless a tech/installer/engineer starts using stated unconstitionally installed wiretaps illegally on their own they are in no danger of proscecution.

too late

[spikedvodka]

It's too late to do anything at this point. Pretty much once it hits the floor, everybody known which way they're going to vote... If they even get your letters before the vote.

Not to say it isn't worth trying, but don't get your hopes up

Re:Senate contact info

[Kohath]

What's to stop them from monitoring/blocking/listing you for contacting your senator in opposition to their immunity?

Life is not a conspiracy movie.

It works differently when there are no writers trying to make everything interesting for an audience. It's a lot more real, with people going to work and doing normal things rather than everyone either trying to take over the world or stop you from taking over the world.

You should consider joining us here in reality sometime. It's less interesting, but you get to be an adult and make your own decisions instead of following the writers' thoughts from one fictional plot point to another.

Re:There must be some industry protections

[Foobar of Borg]

Knocking out communications infrastructure is something invading forces do. It's not something that governments are supposed to let happen.

There are some executives who need to have their heads on pikes, but the industry itself needs protection.

Why? Why should the government bail out yet another set of mega-corporations? AT&T, Verizon and South Central Bell all going bankrupt at once will have an effect on the economy, but those are the breaks. Or do you think big corporations should be immune from prosecution just because of the financial effect it might have on some people?

Also, making these bastards answer for their crimes won't knock out the communications infrastructure. It will still be there, but AT&T, Verizon and South Central Bell will have to sell theirs for pennies on the dollar to telcos that didn't violate the law. And, if there is some disruption in communications, maybe people will for once stop watching staring at the tv all the time and actually pay attention to who is running things. It's a win-win situation as far as I'm concerned.

Re:I did, but it won't matter.

[Foobar of Borg]

Yes, it's a real shame when an entire state overwhelmingly embraces it's Senator. He got only 33% of the Democrat vote, though, which is a shame since Lamont was a wing-nut. He got 70% of the Republican vote, and over 50% of the independents.

I wasn't arguing that he didn't win the election (although "overwhelmingly embraces" is overstating his case just a bit). I was simply agreeing with OP that he was only pretending to be a Democrat, as evidenced by who ultimately supported him. The Republicans liked him much better than they liked their own candidate.

Re:Why are we concerned over the telecoms?

[spun]

We didn't leave, exactly, but we did pull the majority of our forces out prematurely. I don't completely agree that we should have invaded, and I don't agree that we accomplished anything of value.

I've studied WWI, you're right, it is interesting. But the world has changed since then. It's too interconnected for any major player to risk a world war. The risk/benefit analysis for war is totally different now. And the minor players don't have the capacity to mount something like an invasion of the American mainland. Implying that the causes of WWI could replay in today's world is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof. I know a fair amount about WWI, so I'd like to hear your theories as to how those conditions could exist today.