Protecting the guilty from accountability requires suppressing the truth. If Congress allows this to happen, the suppression of the truth will come at a high cost to the integrity of the Constitution, to Americans' legal and civil rights, and potentially to the national security of the United States. The truth and protection of liberties is the benchmark of any free republic and the cornerstone of every democracy. Immunity for the telecoms' prior illegal actions sets a precedent that the Constitution and the courts don't matter on the mere say-so of the executive branch.
A series of administration lies on this subject has collapsed. First, there were President Bush's statements in 2004 "wiretapping occurs in the United States only pursuant to court order." NY Times writers who had found out otherwise were threatened into silence. In 2005, when the government's massive warrantless surveillance program was exposed, the President said "terrorist surveillance program" began in response to the 9/11 attacks and the threat of terrorism. Yet credible sources have reported that the NSA's domestic phone record program began in February,, 2001, not in the aftermath of 9/11, (almost immediately after this administration took office).
The telecom firms were cajoled and bribed (lucrative deals) into betraying their privacy agreements with customers, violating the law, and our Constitution, outweighing misguided patriotism, as evidenced by the fact some telecoms terminated wiretapping when the government contracts expired, and the companies were no longer being paid for this service.
The administration"s insistence on immunity for telecom companies serves only to keep their silence and to protect those guilty from accountability. Without criminal or civil litigation pending, those involved do not need to testify; they can destroy or hide documents (NSA-executive orders); and can suppress evidence which might expose potential abuses of power.
The President"s refusal to sign anti-terrorist legislation or a FISA bill that provides for our nation"s security (without telecom immunity) indicates HE is willing to sacrifice our vital national security interests, and the safety of Americans for the sake of the telecoms, continued secrecy and deception.
Telecom Immunity: Covering Up Illegality by Secrecy and Fear
Dick Cheney was at his best shilling for immunity for telecom companies today before the Heritage Foundation. His speech came one day before the Republican rubber stamp machine in the Senate attempts another push to give blanket immunity to the telecommunication companies suspected of engaging in illegal eavesdropping and surveillance of Americans. Although wiretapping is usually justified as a necessary tool in the "War on Terror", there is good reason to doubt the official story and question the legality of the Bush administration's practices.
Already a series of Bush administration lies on the subject has collapsed. First, there was President Bush's repeated public statements back in 2004 that wiretapping occurs in the United States only pursuant to court order. NY Times writers who had found out otherwise were threatened and cajoled into silence for an entire year. When the government's massive warrantless surveillance program was finally exposed in 2005, we were told the "terrorist surveillance program" had been instituted in response to the 9-11 attacks and the threat of terrorism. But a number of credible sources have since reported that the NSA's domestic phone record program began 7 months before 9/11.
The Administration argues that the telecom companies deserve immunity because their managers were loyal Americans acting in the public interest and they could not have been expected to determine the legality of their actions. Hefty financial incentives in the form of government contracts may have been dangled in front of the telecoms to get them to overlook the legalities. This argument fails, nonetheless, because of evidence in the form of heavily redacted court documents describing Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio's refusal in February 2001 to turn over call records to the NSA without a proper legal order. (Nacchio contends that he was targeted by the Administration for a criminal investigation precisely because he refused to play ball without a court order.)
Obtaining the truth about the NSA's surveillance program is of the utmost importance. Congress is in the process of fashioning a legislative fix that is supposed to accomplish the dual goals of detecting terrorists without unduly invading privacy interests and without clogging up the NSA's databases with non-relevant data about innocent Americans.
Without the facts about the scope of monitoring, what actual prior limitations or technological challenges existed and exactly what kinds of surveillance services or customer records the telecoms were providing the NSA, it's hard to know what, if any, legislative remedy is needed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It is quite obvious, however, from various congresspersons' public statements after the midnight vote in August 2007 (before their summer recess) that few understood what they had voted for. So there's strong reason to believe that Congress itself has still not been told the truth. What Congress and the public have been told is that dramatic changes to FISA are necessary to expand warrantless monitoring of all international calls including of Americans' calls abroad.
Immunizing the telecoms' prior illegal actions in a blanket way not only sets a terrible precedent that the Constitution and the courts don't matter on the mere say-so of the executive branch, but the continued murkiness potentially covers up all kinds of other problems. Remember the FBI's rush to collect banking, credit, telephone, travel and all manner of other information about you with their hundreds of thousands of "national security letters" after 9-11? More is not necessarily better if mistakes and non-relevance are pervasive in such collection, as the Department of Justice's own Inspector General later found.
There are similar utilitarian concerns with the NSA's massive data collection and data-sorting system as those regarding the effectiveness of "no fly lists" that have quickly grown to contain tens of thousands of ordinary persons' names like "Gary Smith". Sources have reported the NSA's surveillance system, enabled by secret contracts between private telecommunication companies and the government, collecting various communications of Americans without individualized probable cause, has already produced a database clogged with corrupted and useless information. The same sources say that privacy protection would have helped inject some judiciousness into analysis and investigations to better separate the innocent from the guilty.
Moreover, there is reportedly no way to even monitor for abuses under the current system. While privacy regulations normally protect all sensitive information about American citizens, such as an IRS return or an FBI file, the program that Bush seeks to immunize apparently provides no way to track abuse by someone in the NSA or Executive Branch. This concern is no small matter considering the history of a rogue FBI agent like Russian spy Robert Hanssen or a criminal staffer like Scooter Libby.
The last time the country was scared into such civil rights abuses, in the 1960s, a high level FBI official ended up testifying to the Church Committee that no one in the FBI had questioned if the COINTELPRO domestic surveillance program was legal, moral or ethical. Fear has a history of inducing such mistakes. The Church Committee eventually unraveled many of the abuses of that era in an open process that stands as a model in ferreting out truth and fixing the problems. That's how we got the FISA law to begin with--it was a compromise to enable monitoring in individual cases for purposes of national security while simultaneously preventing abuse of Americans' privacy rights.
It appears the Bush Administration's push to provide blanket immunity for telecoms is on a par with the C.I.A.'s destruction of videotaped harsh interrogations in the midst of ongoing legal inquiries, the millions of White House e-mail records missing in violation of the Presidential Records Act and Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence. In the Bush administration, protection of the guilty from accountability under the Constitution requires suppressing the truth. But if Congress allows it to happen, the suppression of the truth will come at a high cost to the integrity of the Constitution, to Americans' civil liberties and potentially also to the national security of the United States.
Co-authored by Tom Maertens, former Deputy Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Department of State and National Security Council Director for Non-Proliferation
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1/24/08
10:40pm
Alexandria, VA
Coleen, I was babysitting my grandson all day today and trying to check my e-mail. I could not get into msfisk@mail.com for hours. For unknown reasons I would get a screen that said "TRY LATER, blah blah blah." Now, when I finally got into it this evening, I have a message from Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont thanking me for my kind words, blah blah.
Problem is, I never sent him any "kind words." I moved out of Vermont at the end of November because of mail theft, ID theft, etc., etc. I wonder who sent the COngressman an e-mail using my e-mail account.
Believe me when I tell you, SURVEILLANCE is not a problem for me. If there was ONLY SURVEILLANCE, I wouldn't be having all of these ID theft problems.
Stolen ID is a problem. Stolen evidence for my legal case is a problem. Intercepted calls and e-mail is a problem. Impersonators are a problem.
Surveillance is annoying, but I am not even complaining about surveillance.
SHIRLEY ANN FISK
FIGHT THE IMMUNITY: CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY!
I was only twelve when COINTELPRO was going on so I don't have any first hand information but I have talked to COINTELPRO survivors and veterans, i.e. long-retired FBI agents who were facing indictment(s) for their "black bag jobs". What's instructive about looking back to the COINTELPRO abuse era is that it was the FBI and the telecoms' fear of getting themselves into legal trouble which served as the impetus for fashioning the FISA law. As I understand it, agency personnel and communications personnel were refusing to go along with wiretapping (even when warranted) on mere executive say-so. They wanted the legal comfort of court orders to ensure they would not get into trouble.
Of course the Church Committee did not begin its work of unraveling the abuses that occurred in the 60's until about 1976 when Hoover was safely dead and Nixon was out. This illustrates how powerful a tool secrecy is--the old adage "Secrecy promotes tyranny". Under the criminal Title III law which allows legal wiretapping pursuant to individualized probable cause and judicial court order, only TEMPORARY SECRECY is provided, only while the investigation is ongoing. There's no reason that temporary secrecy as opposed to perpetual secrecy wouldn't work with terrorists just as it does with the Mafia. A form of oversight would be built this way right into the process.
Okay, so I called Sen. Dianne Feinstein asking her to oppose retroactive immunity AGAIN. What does she think that the American peoples opinion on this has changed since the last time she proposed this, or the time before, or the time before... God, when will this lady get the message? Retroactive immunity is NOT OKAY!
Her underling asked, "How do you feel about Sen. Feinsteins proposed amendment, giving immunity to the telephone company only after the FISA court has reviewed on a case by case basis." I replied, "Absolutly not, if the FISA court doesn't find any improper action, the telecom companies won't need immunity, and if the FISA court finds improper actions, I want the telecom companies to be prosecuted! No immunity period. If they've done nothing wrong, why are they asking for it? And if they've something wrong, they don't deserve it..."
I'm furious. And I'm calling.
If anyone wants to call their Senator, here are links to the phone numbers of the Senators on the Intelligence Committee, Judiciary Committee, and our feckless leader, Harry Reid:
Harry Reid - 202-224-3542
Intelligence Committee:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newcommittee.cgi?site=ctc&lang=&commcode=sintelligence
Judiciary Committee:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newcommittee.cgi?site=ctc&lang=&commcode=sjudiciary
If Reid brings up the bill containing telecom immunity again, we can only conclude that the administration has, in the course of their data collections in early 2001, come up with damaging info on him and numerous others in the Congress.
It would be a great test of the candidates' commitment to the people of the US and the rule of law and their pledges to protect and defend the Constitution, if they each were to return to the floor and fight along with Sen. Dodd and others who have promised to filibuster any bill containing immunity. If they do not stand against telecom immunity, we will know where they really stand on defending the Constitution. I will not support ANY candidate who will not fight for the Constitution.
The idea of retroactive immunity is contrary to any notion of law and order in any society. When the telecoms took those lucritive contracts and negated their own privacy contracts with their customers, violated the 4th Amendment, they broke the law, knowingly and willingly. If the President had asked them to murder someone, would that make them patriots? As a free republic and democracy, our laws matter, and each citizen is expected to abide by them, or face consequences of their criminal behavior. This insistence upon immunity has nothing to do with protecting the telecoms, but to prevent any investigation, or the possibility one or more of the CEO's of those companies might show evidence or testify about what really happened, and that Bush-Cheney were on their own illegal surveillance and violated the civil and legal rights of all Americans. There's plenty of evidence the illegal wiretapping began immediately after Dubya stole the election and took office. This idea was not in response to terrorist attacks, as his own office, NSA and FBI ignored numerous warnings about the 9/11 attacks and field memos from agents about the activities of the hijackers. Then, they used 9/11 to justify the continuation of the surveillance, as well as the war in Iraq.
I don't get this frankly. This mis-administration has LIED over 900 times to create this mess and there is at least a suggestion that it's illegal activities began before 9/11 -- and yet instead of defending out Constitution and our laws, the Congress wants to help Bu$h cya. How does this serve our national interest?
I agree that Edwards needs to weigh in on this subject. He can make promises about fighting corrupt big business, but he needs to prove it.. Now
We all know the fable of the Prodigal Son. But what is the REAL message in that story?
It is this:
It was not until the son was IN THE pig sty, EATING THE pig food, that the son realized his birthright was to be a privileged man and not a beggar.
We, as a nation and to-a-man, are now living with the consequences of lawlessness, and some of the lawbreakers have the ability to pass laws. All of them have the ability to authorize both the coining and the spending of money.
Their strategy has been and continues to be quite simple: split the country, divide it against itself, light fires everywhere so they're constantly fighting fires and not paying attention to you. Then loot the place... drain it dry.
"Political parties" are nothing more than brand-names and points of division. The entire, much-too-long "political campaign" is simply a decoy to keep your attention focused on "a coming savior in November of 2008" instead of demanding change right now.
The one thing they fear ... the one thing that will send them fleeing for a place having no extradition treaty ... is "United We Stand."
"What would Patrick Henry do?"
If you want to read more about the uselessness of Harry Reid in all this, wander over to Salon.com and check out Glenn Greenwald's take:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Those who want to claim the U.S. is really a one party state have a lot of evidence in this issue to back them up. At least China is honest and open about it.
Why is Reid pushing this so hard? Why has Reid allowed Iraq funding to go so far? Why have the Democrats caved on all of Bush's illegal schemes? Why do the Democrats continue to support failed economic policies? Why...
Because the Democrats and Republicans are wholly owned and bought subsidiaries of corruption! They are two extreme wings of the same party! Get it through your heads, voters.
Sure, the Democrats and Republicans, "The Party", have different ways of going about it. Different policies. In the end, they are bought and paid for by the same special interests. You do not see it do you? I laugh when I hear that Democrats will bring change.
Like the Clintons who gave us NAFTA. Which party is now receiving the most corporate contributions? The Democrats. I wonder why?
And what do you do as Americans? Support "The Party" and install their candidates, and wonder why nothing is done. That is our failure. Mine, yours, every voter's failure.
Time for a change, don't you think? Time for us to wake up from our collective blindness and take responsibility. The Democrats and Republicans have failed. They have brought us to this crisis. And you, as a voter, are the reason why.
This was the final issue that pushed me from the republican party. Once the truth started to come out, trickle by trickle, bush kept changing his lies to hide the whole truth. At the time the(partial) truth was emerging I counted 6 times bush lied about who was being wiretapped. 6 times he got on national tv and LIED.
When the Administration asks for trust, it is an infallible sign that they are lying.
When they ask for secrecy, it is to cover up their own incompetence and criminality.
There is a real danger to our national security. It is having the Bush Administration preside over a "Global War on Terror.'
Dear Ms. Rowley,
Once again thank you and Tom Maertens for you wonderful efforts in bringing us this eloquent report. Kudos to both! Agape.
Just one more little piece of democracy being denied by the Busheviks and their rubber stamp Congress!
Pelosi, Reid and Hoyer must go - they are complicit in the Bush cover-up which is enabling the diminishment of our democratic ideals and our democracy itself.
The telecoms must not be let off the hook if only to be able to use their testimony to find out the truth of what has been happening. The telecoms' capitulation to the illegal wiretapping is only the first insight into the nefarious contempt for law and the Constitution that the Bush Administration had and there will be much more exposed unless the telecoms are given immunity.
Colleen, how can Congress, constitutionally speaking, pass retroactive immunity? Article 1, section 9 precludes ex post facto laws. Can the Congress use Smith v. Doe to justify the immunity? Or can they enact such a travesty because it would REDUCE a penalty and, thus, not concern the prohibition of ex post facto laws?
Thanks for highlighting this. If they are not doing anything illegal like they say, why do they need immunity anyway?
Why is Reid pushing this so hard? We know why Cheney and Bush are - money. But why Reid? What's in it for him? Money too? ATT execs forgot to read the Fourth Amendment before they caved to the fascist NSA. The Qwest dude did read it -and respect it. And he got punished for believing in our freedoms in the Constitution. Go figure. The money-grubbing fascists are in the wrong country. Bon voyage Cheney, Reid ad nauseum.
Seeing that we have not had another terror attack inside the United States since 2001 shows me that the system we've been using must be working , with that said ....if it ain't broke then it don't need fixing ! Uncle Sam dosen't need to spy on American citizens in order to keep us safe! Besides if we're fightin' them over there then we needent even worry about fightin' over here! And if that weren't enough Darth Cheney done told us WAAAY back when that the terrorists are in their final throes!
Full disclosure: I used to work for AT&T.
And I say, Hammer the bastids.
The Biggest threat to your Freedom and Prosperity is the US Government.
We are becoming more like the Soviet union everyday. We are becoming like Red Communist China.
The so called "Patriot" Act and so called "Protect America" Act have not made anyone safer but it has made everyone less FREE.
The Republicans, neoCONS and christian extremists have begun to move the USA towards a police state.
All Americans will be watched, you will be required to carry your papers(Real ID) and the Police will have almost absolute authority to do what ever they want.
If you are a frightened coward and want to give up your Freedom for a false security like the neoCON republicans have go live in China, or Iran...as an American i will fight to maintain Freedom with every bit of myself.
I can't imagine that Cheney going all out to get the telecoms off the hook. Wouldn't telecom immunity also give Bush immunity? Wouldn't it say that Bush had the authority and the constitutional right for warrantless wiretapping? Wouldn't it retroactively make his actions legal? And as a bonus it would set precedent for the unitary presidency that Bushco was seeking for so long.
Like the signing statements and all of the secrets and lies plus all the no bid contracts and money lost or given away with no records a little bit like letting the telcoms getting off free is just like scooter. Remember him and his assisting cheney in the outing of a undercover CIA agent putting her life and others in danger if someone were to have access to all that has gone on with this administration no one would believe it all happened and was not a script. We lived through it and still have no idea about what has really happened.
So, if you're the People's Republic Of Halli......., it's OK to go around reading everyone ELSE's email, but you get to 'lose' yours...
http://www.impeachbush.org
If it walks like a police state, talks like a police state....
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Posted January 23, 2008 | 04:43 PM (EST)