Comments on: Upcoming Senate vote may shield wiretap collaborators

Politicians clear first hurdle toward approving sweeping legal rewrite that would crush lawsuits alleging illegal cooperation between the government, communications companies.

[missingamerica]

Trade, then...

"Companies who participated at a great risk of exposure and financial ruin for one reason and one reason only, in order to help identify terrorists and prevent follow-on terrorist attacks, they should not be penalized for their willingness to heed the call during a national emergency."

OK, Rockefeller - use your head, then, if you can't tear your hand away from your wallet - or stocks, rather.

Make the intelligence community - and the Telecoms - make public exactly how many different conversations with distinct and different endpoints in the United States have been and are being spied upon at any instant in time - in the past, now, and continually throughout the future.

Break it out on a per state basis - no need for further details. Numbers say interesting things about, well, just about anything - but in particular about just how focused and justified an intelligence operation is.

Further, add a rider to the legislation that says any effort to spoof the address of the originator or receiver of any traffic to meet the qualifier that one endpoint is "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." is a felony that carries a minimum prison sentence of 10 years.

Likewise make any attempt to substitute for or modify the content of any traffic in order to falsely incriminate or justify the further interrogation of an individual or group a felony that carries a minimum prison sentence of 30 years.

Now you know just how much I trust the intelligence community when PNAC has its tendrils so deep in the heart of our government.

[ecotopian--2008]

Welcome to the Total Surveillance State

Apparently, we need to be protected from ourselves

[scdecade]

legal question

I'm no lawyer so I've been wondering... How is it the US Congress has the authority to exonerate people (and corporations) after the fact? Isn't there some sort of 'ex post facto' rule whereby new laws cannot be applied retroactively? If these companies did something which was illegal at the time shouldn't they be liable come what may?

The only reason to commute liability is if something clearly illegal occurred. If these illegal acts occurred at the behest of the government then isn't it vitally critical liability is not forgiven? If this isn't the case then there is literally nothing to prevent the government from acting without consideration of legal or moral jeopardy? That's a recipe for disaster.

[Proustian]

Actuall you don't need to do something illegal

to get a civil lawsuit filed against you.

Only foreign terrorists outside the USA got wiretapped, but people are filing nuisance lawsuits against phone companies even if their lines were not tapped and they never called foreign terrorist numbers that triggered the wiretaps on phone calls anyway. Just that a lot of foreign phone calls get routed through the USA anyway, like Afghanistan to Iraq, and no US citizen took or gave the call in the first place.

These are like the McDonald's made me fat lawsuits, and are nuisance or frivolous lawsuits that only bog down the legal system and make it harder to go after the real terrorists and impede the war against terror. The McDonald's made me fat lawsuits all got thrown out of court, but not after wasting years of court time and legal resources to disprove. McDonald's does not make people fat, people eating too many Big Macs make themselves fat by eating too many of them and not eating healthier.

[suyts]

ex post facto

relates to passing a law making an prior act illegal after the fact. An example would be, that I got stopped at a DUI check point and blew a .09 when .10 was the limit then "after the fact" a law is passed making the limit .08. I can't be charged for a DUI because I was legal when I committed the act. Hope that helps. Congress and the President, in this case, are trying to shield companies from civil suits, not criminal anyway. In this nation of lawyers, anybody can sue anyone for anything, not necessarily illegal or criminal. My 2 cents, if the companies were acting in good faith, congress should give it to them. Regardless of wether congress gives it to them or not, I'm sure the Supreme Court will hear the case anyway.

[appledogx--2008]

They were only following orders

Doing illegal things to protect the country.

Where have we heard that before? I'm glad they weren't competing
for poison gas contracts.

Frankly, I have no sympathy for those who rush to do wrong for
profit. Too bad the Senate is so willing to do so. More dung is slung
on the Constitution.

[suyts]

I don't believe the question of

legality has been settled. As far as foreign, non-citizen phone conversations, I don't believe any criminal act took place. Foreign, non-citizens have no constitutional protection in this nation. I don't believe there was a profit involved for anybody other than the intention to protect the U.S. which is a Constitutional prerogative.

[m.meister]

Forsaking their duties once again

Once again, our magnificent Congress is forsaking their duties.
We truly are in a state of an out of control government.

It is time we stopped rushing through bills like this. It is time we
stopped using "the terrorists" as the main excuse for why it's OK
for the government to stomp on our Constitution.

We are but frogs enjoying a warm bath -- too stupid to see that
the water is coming to a boil.

[suyts]

I agree,

somewhat, to your point, phone tapping is somewhat unnerving and the question needs to be resolved by the Supreme Court regarding its constitutionality, whether the other half of a citizens phone conversation can be monitored or not. Please remember, though, the constitution does not guarantee protection to non-citizens. Please also remember when and why these policies were placed. These were placed as a direct response to the murderous attack on this nation on 9/11. After the attacks, action was not only warranted but constitutionally required. I understand your misgivings, most do, still I really don?t believe the threat of another attack is gone. You got a better way to prevent them? I?m listening.

[nicmart]

Opposing the corporate welfare-warfare state

The simplest way to express your opposition is to vote for Ron
Paul for president.

[enovikoff]

Sheeple

It is the sheeple that believe that the government is always acting in their interests. If everything the government does is hidden behind secrecy with no checks and balances, what makes you believe it will be in your interest? Over and over again, administrations have proven you wrong, from Nixon (watergate), to Reagan (iran-contra), to today's warrantless wiretapping and blatantly causeless war in Iraq for which we are mortgating the nation's future. If there is no public scrutiny, our government's top officials will do just as they please, exactly like any dictatorship.