I loved Keith Olberman's commentary last week about this topic. According to Bush, this bill is vital to protect the American people from terrorism. But he's willing to veto it and put us into danger if it doesn't contain immunity for the telecoms. Hmmmm.
Yes, this veto threat really shows who Bush cares about. There is something far more going on here, of course. Bush himself never says that the Telecoms did anything wrong--he says they "may" have helped. And since he continues to say they did nothing wrong, why do they need immunity?
I guess I don't know the exact role of the telecoms here. I know they provided information, but how was it done? On some level it seems unfair to them. The gov't can always claim soverign immunity and any future litigation would focus on the telecoms.
Steve, I agree to a point. Mostly that we really don't know what they did and why they need immunity. That is why I think this is more about covering people in the White House more than protecting the telecoms.
My sense of the situation is that there are government officials who knowingly and deliberately broke the law while acting in their official capacity. From this perspective, telecom immunity prevents corporate officials from rolling over on those they collaborated with to provide access to American citizen's private info. This may be a tinfoil hat view, I realize, but I would hope the government would let the sun shine in so we could decide for ourselves.
5 comments:
I loved Keith Olberman's commentary last week about this topic. According to Bush, this bill is vital to protect the American people from terrorism. But he's willing to veto it and put us into danger if it doesn't contain immunity for the telecoms. Hmmmm.
Yes, this veto threat really shows who Bush cares about. There is something far more going on here, of course. Bush himself never says that the Telecoms did anything wrong--he says they "may" have helped. And since he continues to say they did nothing wrong, why do they need immunity?
I guess I don't know the exact role of the telecoms here. I know they provided information, but how was it done? On some level it seems unfair to them. The gov't can always claim soverign immunity and any future litigation would focus on the telecoms.
Steve, I agree to a point. Mostly that we really don't know what they did and why they need immunity. That is why I think this is more about covering people in the White House more than protecting the telecoms.
My sense of the situation is that there are government officials who knowingly and deliberately broke the law while acting in their official capacity. From this perspective, telecom immunity prevents corporate officials from rolling over on those they collaborated with to provide access to American citizen's private info. This may be a tinfoil hat view, I realize, but I would hope the government would let the sun shine in so we could decide for ourselves.
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