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Originally Posted by Willravel
Could you summarize your views on telecom immunity really quickly? I would assume that it's simply "they were helping to find terrorists" or something.
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I predict ace's response will be about justifying amnesty because, without it, continued litigation will only be about windfall profits for "trial lawyers", and those lawyers contribute to democrats, so.....
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http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05...t-quarter-2008
May 20th, 2008
AT&T Spent $5.2 million on lobbying in the First Quarter of 2008
Posted by Kurt Opsahl
The Associated Press is reporting that AT&T, the defendant in EFF's NSA surveillance litigation, "spent $5.2 million in the first quarter to lobby on domestic spying legislation and other issues." To put this into perspective, AT&T's spending for three months on lobbying alone is significantly more than the entire EFF budget for a whole year, from attorneys to sysadmins, pencils to bandwidth. For 2007, AT&T spent over $16 million on lobbying.
So what does over $5 million buy you? While AT&T's powerhouse FISA lobbyist Charlie Black left his firm BKSH & Associates [1Q 2008 Disclosure Form] to become Senator John McCain's chief campaign strategist, AT&T now has former United States Senators Trent Lott and John Breaux (the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group) [Lobbying Registration] to pull in the slack. The Center for Responsive Politics has the full list.
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The ongoing litigation concerns telecomms giving customer billing records with the telephone numbers called and received, to the government, without a warrant signed by a judge, as required by law. The other suits related to warrantless surveillance were dismissed by the courts because no one could prove that they were surveilled, because the government refused to admit any specifics to the judge or the plaintiffs, citing national security excuses, thus, there was no plaintiff with standing satisfactory to the court.
I predict that ace is fine with his calling records, and maybe his internet search logs being given by his phone or ISP provider to the government, just for the asking, legal requirements for probable cause and a judge approved warrant, waived, in secret, by the executive....