FISA-- Why Telecom Immunity Matters

Strangebedfellow Glenn Greenwald is consistently putting out the best writing on the web about the FISA reauthorization bill now before the Senate. Find Glenn at www.Salon.com/opinion/Greenwald; and keep in mind-- Glenn is from the left! We in the Ron Paul movement are civil libertarians to the core, but our intellectual friends from the left are a bit ahead of us (it seems to me) in understanding the importance of this disgraceful FISA power grab by the political class. So here's some grounding about what the FISA bill is really all about.

First and foremost it should be remembered that the illegal telecom conduct in question was not a matter that came about as some sort of emergency response of the moment in the wake of the crisis following September 11, 2001. As Greenwald points out in his piece dated July 8, 2008: "the reality is that the Government and the telecoms broke the law not for weeks or months, but for years-- well into 2007. . . . They could have brought their spying activities into a legal framework at any time, but chose instead to spy on Americans in exactly the way our laws criminalize. Manifestly, then, national security had nothing to do with why they did it. . . . This was rampant, deliberate lawbreaking that lasted for many years."

Telecom apologists contend that the companies should escape punishment because they acted in response to written requests and directives from President Bush. The apologist argument is that a company following such directives should be shielded from accountability, even though we now know that the directives were unlawful and constituted in themselves an abuse of presidential power. This apologist argument is not merely wrongheaded, it is a perversion of our core principles of governance. As Greenwald tells us in his writing of July 5, 2008, a United States President has no power to "order" private citizens to do anything, let alone to break the law. The President is not a monarch, and even in those limited circumstances where the President does have Commander In Chief power (the military) a soldier is prohibited from obeying an unlawful order. Very simply, American private actors don't have government "commanders" who order or direct them to do things. Contrary to what our political elitists want us to believe, no one-- not telecoms, and not the President himself-- stands above the rule of law in this nation.

Greenwald also makes the important point in his July 5 piece that FISA and other such laws were enacted specifically for the purpose of compelling the telecom industry by force of law to REFUSE illegal government "orders" to allow spying on their customers. The laws create an independent duty on the part of the telecoms to their customers to protect customer privacy. Under law, telecoms are strictly forbidden from handing over communications and customer records to the government without proper legal process. Supporters of the telecom retroactive immunity provisions in FISA are standing up for the wholly improper proposition that a president's order to break the law should and must be obeyed, and nothing could be further afield from the constitutional framework of our founders.

So why did the telecoms do it? Unfortunately, the answer is clear and obvious. Our giant telecoms are the beneficiaries of massive government contract handouts, and they well knew and understood that this largesse would be imperiled if they refused to cooperate. The telecoms are massive feeders at the government trough. So at its core, this disgusting episode is all about money. Sad and despicable, but true.

More tomorrow.

Paste this code into your site to promote this story!

Rick Williams's blog
Login or register to post comments
266 reads

If the CEO of qwest communications can be believed

It is his position that the government came to him prior to 9-11 and asked them to give the government "access" to its servers, etc... and they refused. Then the CEO gets denied other government contracts and is then prosecuted for SEC violations. Violations which would not have likely occurred if the government contracts would have been fulfilled. Coincidence?

Notice how long immunity in the statute runs for - from sept 11 2001 to sometime in 2007! Thats a long period of time for all types of activities to be covered up and sealed away. The AT&T stuff was just "one of the programs the administration has acknowledged" - - what else was there? The shut down (by Congress a few years earlier) Total Information Awareness program? Seems probable to me. And now we won't know for decades unless brave whistleblowers come forward with credible documentation. Like the pentagon papers or something.