There’s a chance a very bad bill will be passed by Congress this week, which would say that corporations can get away with breaking the law as long as they’re “just following orders” from a power-hungry president. Because that mindset wasn’t problematic in Germany last century, of course. If you write your senators/reps about nothing else this year, write them about this.
Let’s review:
- The president and many telecom companies (AT&T, etc.) broke the law over the past several years by spying on Americans without going through the proper channels. (Specifically, there’s a special secret court called the FISA court which serves as a check-and-balance whenever a president wants to spy on American citizens.)
- People who break the law should be punished, and being the president (or AT&T) shouldn’t get you off the hook. If the president can break the law and get away with it, we are no longer living in a democracy.
- To try to cover the ass of the law-breaking, Big Brother-enabling telecom companies, Republicans and some craven Democrats passed the “Protect AT&T Act” (which technically bears the fatuous name “Protect America Act”) in 2007. But thanks to grassroots pressure, Democrats let it expire this February.
- And Republicans have been feverishly trying ever since to get it back, because otherwise the telecoms and by extension Bush & Co. could end up exposed in court. They keep using “compromise” rhetoric, but they’ve insisted on giving immunity to the law-breaking telecom companies, which is completely unacceptable.
- Except some Democrats are perpetually on the verge of caving, because they have no principles, or have some kind of battered caucus syndrome and haven’t fully realized they are the majority and don’t have to do a damn thing they don’t want to. Some might be afraid this issue will hurt their reelection campaigns, but there’s no good reason for that: just a few months ago, the GOP tried to make a campaign issue of this in a special race in Illinois, and the Democrat with the cajones to defend the rule of law got elected, in a solidly Republican district no less.
- Specifically, top Democrats in the House appear to be caving, while Senate Democrats appear to have more spine – Reid is playing it cool, and major badasses Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold are urging him not to accept any bill that includes telecom immunity. So that’s a little sliver of hope to encourage you while you write your representatives.
The text of the sample letter at that ACLU link sums it all up well:
According to media reports, Congress may soon take up a FISA bill with meaningless judicial review. Courts would be directed to look only at whether telecom companies got a note from the president, rather than considering if these companies actually broke the law.
While this plan is designed to make it look like there is a judicial process for companies accused of illegally handing over millions of phone calls and emails to the government, it really turns the court into nothing more than a rubber stamp.
This plan is completely unacceptable. It is not a compromise on immunity; it’s blanket immunity. I urge you to reject it.
PS, if you’re in New England, the numbers for your senators: Continue reading →
