House Republicans Renew Push for Telecom Immunity

CNet is running an update to the controversy over giving telecommunications giants such as AT&T immunity from lawsuits involving the assistance they gave the NSA for illegal wiretaps. Republican leaders are circulating a petition which would force a vote on the bill passed by the Senate but not by the House. Democrats are holding out for a version of the FISA bill which opens the telecoms to prosecution. President Bush still intends to veto any such document. "At a wide-ranging House hearing on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller again urged passage of a bill that includes immunity for phone companies, arguing that 'uncertainty' among the carriers 'affects our ability to get info as fast and as quickly as we would want.' He admitted, however, that he was not aware of any wiretap requests being denied because of Congress' inaction."

Comments

National Security or Political Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

On Wednesday, a number of Republican leaders, including Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.), began circulating what's known as a "discharge" petition

Lamar Smith -- $679,583 from Communic/Electronics industry
Peter Hoekstra -- $42,685 from Communic/Electronics industry
Peter King -- $140,072 from Communic/Electronics industry

"More than 66 days have passed since House Democrats allowed a key piece of terrorist surveillance legislation to expire--not because they had concerns with the bill, but because they were seemingly more concerned that not enough trial lawyers would be able to file enough expensive and frivolous lawsuits against U.S. telecom firms," Republican whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said in a statement.

Roy Blunt -- $846,327 from Communic/Electronics industry

Re:Hard to Say "No."

[tbannist]

Absolutely not, if they were coerced that needs to be shown in a court of law. I have no problem with not punishing them for breaking law in that case, but the evidence that they were coerced needs to be entered shown to the courts first.

Immunity just allows the White House to hide the evidence of what they were doing when they knowingly broke the law by asking for information they could not legally ask for.