I guess people would rather argue about the candidates, huh, Turkana? And where are the candidates on this?
Posted by iamcoyote at January 24, 2008 08:08 AMHere's the argument I just heard from a senator about why they should give immunity to the telecoms:
paraphrasing: The gov't needs help from the private sector to keep us secure. The telecoms acted in good faith--they were told this was a gov't request and that the attorney general said it was legal. If we don't give them immunity, how helpful do you think they'll be in the future when we need them?
Ok, first of all, why are people suing the telecoms when they should just directly sue the Bush administration?
Second, if the telecoms didn't do anything wrong (and sure, I can see an argument that they were flat out told it was legal, so they shouldn't be held accountable), then they have nothing to fear from a lawsuit. (On the other hand, if there is a lawsuit and the court finds that hey, if you thought it was legal, then you're not responsible, is that really a precedent we want? Maybe we should be for immunity after all.)
Third, how helpful would they be next time? Well hopefully, not very. And if they hadn't been helpful last time, Bush would have maybe been forced to actually comply with the law and get a warrant, and that would have been a good thing.
Posted by CG at January 24, 2008 09:55 AM