RTFA: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/feds-eff-…

The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation’s telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans’ private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

At issue in the high-stakes showdown – set to begin at 10:00 a.m. PST – are the nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups and class action attorneys against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The lawsuits claim the cooperation violated federal wiretapping laws and the Constitution.

In July, as part of a wider domestic spying bill, Congress voted to kill the lawsuits and grant retroactive amnesty to any phone companies that helped with the surveillance; President-elect Barack Obama was among those who voted for the law in the Senate. On Tuesday, lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation are set to urge the federal judge overseeing those lawsuits to reject immunity as unconstitutional. At stake, they say, is the very principle of the rule of law in America.

“I think it does set a very frightening precedent that it’s okay for people to break the law because they can just have Congress bail them out later,” says EFF legal director Cindy Cohn. “It’s very troubling.”

I watched the FISA debate on the Senate floor, and although I was sometimes encouraged by the discussion, I was equally disappointed by the arguments I heard.

Retroactive Immunity is unacceptable if only because there were some phone companies that refused to comply, on the basis that they suspected it was illegal. Let’s be clear: certain companies proactively determined this would be illegal. This is a perfect case for a … what do you call it? Oh yeah: a Judge. See, a Judge would clear up the uncertainty because there’d be a record of the judgment. This could later be overturned, but that’s a world apart from the current situation.

The whole idea about warrants (or the FISA court, for that matter) is to determine if an action is legal BEFORE you commit that action.

RTFA: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2276225,00.as…

Members approved H.R. 3773 by a vote of 213 to 197 Friday afternoon after a battle over whether members should vote on a House or Senate version of the bill.

At issue is a warrantless surveillance program that helped the government more easily eavesdrop on suspected terrorists after Sept. 11. Telecommunications companies cooperated with the government, and allowed the National Security Agency access to their networks without any court intervention.

The Senate passed a FISA bill recently that would grant telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for participating in the program, but the House version would requires those companies to face the music in the courtroom.

President Bush has for weeks pressured the House to adopt the Senate version of the bill, and has pledged to veto any bill that does not include retroactive immunity. A temporary FISA extension expired on February 16.

Apparently, the telecom companies could only corrupt 197 house reps, which is less than 50%. Yes! Democracy works!

RTFA: http://feingold.senate.gov/issues_immunityfacts.ht…

S. 2248 would require the courts to throw out lawsuits alleging that telephone companies broke the law by participating in warrantless surveillance. If the immunity provision became law, even if it could be proven that telephone companies clearly and knowingly broke the law, they would not be held accountable, and Americans’ privacy rights would be nullified.

The Dodd-Feingold amendment would strike this automatic, retroactive immunity provision and leave it to the courts to determine whether the telephone companies acted properly and therefore deserve immunity.

Great set of points to memorize for those holiday dinner-time discussions.

Yep – straight from the internet tube: the Senate will pick this one up in January.

To quote Harry Reid, “in Nevada we don’t like wiretaps… we’re very private people, and I think that’s where America is.” He continued, “Because we believe this retroactive immunity needs to be studied very closely, it doesn’t mean we’re any less patriotic than anyone else.”

Dodd wrapped it up by quoting Frank Church, who chaired the initial FISA discussions: “Domestic surveillance activities threaten to undermine our democratic society… Personal privacy is protected because it is essential to our liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Current as of 1638PST. They’re working late in DC, tonight!

Senator Dodd has promised to lead the charge against Telecom Immunity, and it appears this has begun. We’re watching the proceedings, in real-time, streaming from FedNet.

As of 1440PST, Dodd is walking through the individual arguments that have been offered in favor of immunity, and then he is debunking them.

[EDIT]
Scratch that – it’s just a threat. See the update.
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