More Telecomming
Sarah and I had a discussion the other day in which she asked me, “why should the telecom companies be prosecuted when the president was the one who broke the law?” And it’s a good question which is, I think, being used by a lot of people to justify giving them immunity. Glenn Greenwald answers this question in a very thoughtful way today, and I encourage you to read it if you’re interested.
The basic point is that, even if the President asked the telecoms to give up our private data, it was still against the law. I’m sure a lot of people think, “if George Bush asked me to break the law, I wouldn’t have a choice.” But in this country, when given the choice between breaking the law and honoring the request of your president, you are obligated to obey the law. George Bush doesn’t have the power to break the law, and he also doesn’t have the power to force other people to break the law. Now, I’d be scared shitless if I had to disobey a presidential order, but the telecom companies are vastly more powerful than I am, and they knew full well going into this mess that the were breaking the law. Maybe they had great reasoning behind their actions … but if this FISA bill passes, we’ll never know, because they won’t be obligated to explain their actions in a court of law.
So anyway, read the article, and if you’re moved enough to do something about it, please visit this link to call your senators and urge them to strip retroactive immunity from the FISA bill. I made the calls the other day, and it was totally easy. You don’t need to know a lot of impressive facts and figures … just follow the script given on the website, the Senators’ assistants will note your opinion, and you will have had the say you deserve as a member of a Democracy. And that’s the last I’ll say about it.
Happy Independence Day!
July 6th, 2008 at 7:10 am
The FISA bill sucks, but don’t feed the meme that it grants retroactive immunity from prosecution; it doesn’t, it grants retroactive immunity from civil suits. When it passes (as it likely, unfortunately, will), we need people to remember that prosecution is still an option, and we need to encourage President Obama to do so.
To be clear, this bill sucks, but we can’t let its passage end the debate about prosecuting the telecoms that broke the law. They will not have retroactive immunity from prosecution when this bill passes, and everyone needs to know that. Otherwise, they’ll effectively have retroactive immunity just because everyone thinks they do.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:36 am
I definitely want to get my facts right, so I appreciate the comment. However, I think the phrase “retroactive immunity” has become a meme for a reason: the civil suits are the only place where the telecoms are going to be held responsible. In fact, Obama used the same language I did in his statement about his support for the FISA bill:
I agree that debate should continue even if the bill passes. However, readers should note that A) criminal suits are harder to win than civil suits, B) that taking away the right of the American public to sue corporations who violate their civil rights is wrong in and of itself and C) that Bush can pardon the telecoms from criminal suits, not civil suits. So even if Congress is still allowed to prosecute the telecoms criminally, they have about 6 months to do so before Bush pardons everyone involved and makes it impossible. To believe Congress will do this is to place an awful lot of faith in a Congress that is on track to pass a useless bill because of political pressure.
You are right in saying I should be more exact in my language, and believe me, it comes from my ignorance of exactly what we’re getting ourselves into. My basic, monkey-like grasp of the facts tells me that we should still call our representatives and do our best to register our displeasure with this bill in the meantime.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:50 am
… and I should also point out that I really don’t know where a criminal suit would originate. I’m assuming these suits would originate at the federal level, but I would imagine the states could bring criminal suits against the telecoms as well. I haven’t read any analysis of this. There might be a game plan in place for what to do if the bill is passed; I just haven’t seen it detailed anywhere.
July 6th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
The “retroactive immunity” language is accurate. Retroactive immunity against prosecution (or, as you said, things like “because they won’t be obligated to explain their actions in a court of law”) is inaccurate.
Bush is also unlikely to grant them a pardon, because he’d have to spell out what he was pardoning them for, and thus admit that he himself had broken the law.
Anyhoo, yes, let’s still raise a ruckus, but there’s still room to prosecute both them and the President.
All of that said… I think it’s highly unlikely to happen in any case, without something very damning coming out. I suspect the Obama administration will pick one high-profile thing to fix, most likely the Justice Department fiasco (because that absolutely has to be fixed in order for anything else to be fixed), and then move on. I think it’s unlikely that any of the Bush offenses will lead to real criminal prosecution, in the interest of “moving on.” I think we missed that chance in 2004 (or, perhaps, in 2000).