Congress can debate telecom immunity but not jurors
As I write this, members of the U.S. Senate are debating whether to forward legislation that would grant some measure of immunity to telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon for allowing the federal government to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants.
Much of the rationale offered by telecom immunity supporters is that telecom carriers rightly saw the need, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, to prioritize national security and rapid action over bureaucracy or even civil liberties. But recent reports suggest this activity started even before Sept. 11, 2001.
Some say the carriers shouldn’t be punished for this activity because they were assured by the administration that the program was legal. AT&T and Verizon “are not experts on Article II of the Constitution,” Senator Diane Feinstein said on the Senate floor today, arguing for telecom immunity.
I have a short answer on this issue. I will happily listen to supporters of telecom immunity enumerate all the various arguments justifying and mitigating carriers’ actions in this case. And when they’re done, I’ll simply say this: “If your arguments are so reasonable, why don’t you trust a jury to see them?”
December 17th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Even if a Telecom company paid high powered lawyers to analyze Article II and the various amendments to the Constitution, and even if said lawyers came up with ironclad case histories that would unquestionably defend their position, there can be no assurance that a jury would see things the same way. Keep in mind that citizens have three kinds of votes. There is the vote tendered during elections at the polls. There is also the vote tendered if a member of a jury. And there is the vote tendered if a member of a Grand Jury. As people become more sophisticated by virtue of access to information, it is reasonable that people will, more and more frequently, exercise all three forms of the vote to their own advantage. If people believe that the Government is spying on them without reason, it simply does not matter what an attorney or several attorneys say, and it does not matter what a judge’s instructions are.
Communications companies, take heed. Everyone else, take heed. We are living in a world where the very communications facilities you have created can come back and bite you. Your only defense will be to have laws that retroactively absolve you of responsibility in the event of a lawsuit involving eavesdropping. There can be no question of the importance and value of such laws.
December 17th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I am impressed with an industry spokesman’s response. Why are our Senator’s having such an issue with this? Why would any Congressperson worth his or her salt want to grant retroactive immunity? What happened to the rule of law in this country.
Thanks for the oh so sensible and rational and clear response.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
It seems silly to assume at&t and Verizon with all of their legal resources don’t have a clue about Article II of the Constitution. If their actions are defendable let them defend them.
February 5th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
This will certainly effect precedent in ways Dianes tiny little brain doesn’t seem to grasp.
1) Ignorance of the law will now be an excuse for breaking it.
2) If you commit a crime today your intentions are really the defining factor. If you feel like your a good citizen, your crime is no longer a crime. All you need is a boiler plate statement to excuse your actions.
3) Then there is the grandfather problem, privacy laws have no ‘grandfather’ clause inherent at this time, implying that some crimes now exist in an extra-legal framework which the courts have no business reviewing. Implying that there are now ‘other’ legal systems which are not generally avaliable - meaning the old ones are no longer have validity - and it won’t take long for people to figure that out.
No point in debating this, some people are against having a legal system and prefer totalitarianism and ‘convenient’ common law and others believe in a written law which must be obeyed within peoples limits. Congress gets to choose whether they remain a legislative body in actuality, or a paper generating body which becomes more obsolete each month. In choosing immunity (the way state governments grant immunity to industries who engage in local economic warfare for a ‘good economic cause’ and ‘progress’ or ’security’ ) congress would essentially do two things - make corporations an arm of the state, and make the state a bona-fide arm of a corporation - making both irrelevant as ‘institutions’. Good luck.
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