The Bush administration has launched an aggressive
campaign to pressure the House into passing retroactive immunity
for telecoms that participated in the government’s warrantless
wiretapping program.
Because they complied in illegally wiretapping their customers,
telecoms currently face around 40 lawsuits. Yesterday in a
speech to the National Association of Attorneys General, Bush
sharply criticized Americans who are suing the telecoms:
Watch it:
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Bush is implying that Americans who oppose telecom
immunity are unpatriotic. But the American people don’t
owe the telecoms any gratitude. These corporations chose to
break the law and profited greatly from doing so. (At least
one company refused to comply with the Bush administration’s
request because it knew the actions were illegal.)
Last week in a letter to Congress, the Computer & Communications
Industry Association (CCIA) — which represents groups
such as Google and Microsoft — said that it “strongly”
opposes retroactive immunity: “To imply that our industry
would refuse assistance under established law is an affront
to the civic integrity of businesses that have consistently
cooperated unquestioningly with legal requests for information.”
Transcript:
And I thank you for wading in. There’s a lot of legal
complexities on the FISA renewal debate, but the real issue
comes down to this: To defend the country, we need to be able
to monitor communications of terrorists quickly and be able
to do it effectively.
And we can’t do it without the cooperation of private
companies. Unfortunately, some of the private companies have
been sued for billions of dollars because they are believed
to have helped defend America after the attacks on 9/11. Now
the question is, should these lawsuits be allowed to proceed,
or should any company that may have helped save American lives
be thanked for performing a patriotic service; should those
who stepped forward to say we’re going to help defend
America have to go to the courthouse to defend themselves,
or should the Congress and the President say thank you for
doing your patriotic duty? I believe we ought to say thank
you.
