Immunity for Telecommunication Companies

There is just so much going on in politics right now, it's enough to make a person's head swim trying to keep track of everything. It doesn't help when we can't take our leader's words as truths. It was good that the House called Bush's bluff about granting immunity for telecommunication companies. I think a phrase uttered from a House member said it best, If this was about protecting the American public, Bush would have accepted another 15 day extension to keep Americans safe. Bush has basically admitted that the whole thing is about getting immunity for the telecoms saying that any bill not including an immunity clause would be vetoed. So does that make it sound like Bush is really worried about the American public? I don't think so. Why do you think it's so important for Bush to get immunity for the telecoms? Do you think that it's really because he thinks that in the future big companies won't help us if we really need them to? Government can pass laws to mandate that they cooperate, in fact there are already laws on the books allowing for just that, the problem was that the Bush administration didn't use the laws that were in place to access this information. Why? Anyone's guess, but I would imagine that it would have something to do with that in order to go about this legally, Bush would have had to get permission from a court set up just for that purpose. So what's the problem with that? Well then searches would have had to have some legal basis for needing to tap into that person or group's phone(s), in other words the searches would have had to been accountable with limitations on what was and what couldn't be done during the process of tapping these lines. From what little has become public about this process that went on, this was a huge operation that scanned most everyone on the telecom's customer list. Then I think it was last night I heard some republican or spokes person from the administration saying because of this bill not passing, that the telecoms are already starting to not want to continue helping the government, but I was reading that the reason the telecoms want to shut the programs down is that the government agencies that are involved with this aren't paying their phone bills. I agree with some of the people in government that say ultimately any legal damages awarded to groups suing the telecoms should be paid by the Bush administration instead of the telecoms, because when it is the government that is telling you to turn over information like this, it's hard not to comply. There has been at least one telecom company that didn't turn over their customer information which means at least one company figured out the legalities of the deal.

There is another reason why Bush is so intent on giving telecoms immunity. Remember when the congress got duped into granting immunity for intense interrogation techniques aka torture by waterboarding among other things? Congress went on later to pass another bill expressively banning waterboarding after the fact. When asked about the legality of waterboarding Attorney General Mukasey, Mukasey dodged giving an answer by saying that the government claims that it has not done it after the law preventing waterboarding was passed, so it's a moot point making a decision as to whether it was illegal in the past. If the telecoms are given immunity for handing out records without the proper legal process, would that make a moot point of the president asking them to illegally hand over such information?