How Telecoms Are Attempting to Buy Amnesty From Congress

[Joanne98]

by Glenn Greenwald
One of the benefits from the protracted battle over telecom amnesty is that it is a perfect microcosm for how our government institutions work. And a casual review of the available evidence regarding how telecom amnesty is being pursued demonstrates what absurd, irrelevant distractions are the pro-amnesty justifications offered by the pundit class and the Bush administration.

Just in the first three months of 2008, recent lobbyist disclosure statements reveal that AT&T spent $5.2 million in lobbyist fees (putting it well ahead of its 2007 pace, when it spent just over $17 million). In the first quarter of 2008, Verizon spent $4.8 million on lobbyist fees, while Comcast spent $2.6 million. So in the first three months of this year, those three telecoms — which would be among the biggest beneficiaries of telecom amnesty (right after the White House) — spent a combined total of almost $13 million on lobbyists. They’re on pace to spend more than $50 million on lobbying this year — just those three companies.

Let’s pause for a brief minute to reflect on how ludicrous and deceptive — laughably so — are some of the main FISA/telecom claims that are being advanced. We continuously hear, for instance, that these poor, beleaguered telecoms need protection from the big, money-hungry plaintiffs’ lawyers driving these “costly” surveillance lawsuits. One of the two organizations leading the litigation against the telecoms (along with the ACLU) is the non-profit group Electronic Frontiers Foundation. Here is what EFF’s Kurt Opsahl wrote this week:

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 sys admins, pencils to bandwidth.

And then there’s the claim — advanced by the likes of The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt, among others — that it’s a grave injustice to force these telecoms to incur attorneys fees in order to defend themselves against allegations that they broke the law because the litigation is so “costly.” Yet here these telecoms are spending $1 million per month or more in order to send former government officials to pressure members of Congress to write our laws the way they want them to be written. * * * * *

Then there are the specific lobbying arrangements these telecoms have regarding FISA. AT&T, for instance, paid $120,000 in the first three months of 2008 to the lobbying firm of BSKH & Associates — the firm of which Charlie Black, top campaign adviser to John McCain, is a founding partner. According to BSKH’s lobbyist disclosure form (.pdf), Charlie Black himself, at the same time he was advising McCain, was one of the individuals paid by AT&T to lobby Congress on FISA. From that disclosure form:

Last year, AT&T paid $400,000 to Black’s firm. Black was taking money from AT&T to lobby on FISA and simultaneously advising McCain. McCain, needless to say, voted in favor of granting amnesty to AT&T and the other telecoms at exactly the time that his close adviser, Black, was taking money from AT&T to influence Congress on its behalf. And, of course, AT&T and Verizon are among McCain’s top donors.

While we’re subjected to all sorts of prattle from our pundit class and political leaders about how telecom amnesty is so urgent if we want to be Safe from the Terrorists, this is the sleaze that fuels how the process works. And the sleaze is spread around in a nice bipartisan way. Continued>>>
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/25/9186/

[msongs]

1. part 2: and how democrats in congress are helping to make it happen nt

[antigop]

2. bingo! I posted this a while back...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4869721

[JDPriestly]

3. Cenk of the Young Turks pointed out how hypocritical Boehner of Ohio

is in favoring immunity. Boehner sued McDermott for violation of privacy, and here is the story:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Minority Leader John Boehner was awarded more than $1 million in legal fees Tuesday in perhaps the concluding chapter of his politically charged lawsuit against Democratic Rep. James McDermott.

The case dealt with an illegally intercepted phone call in 1996 involving Boehner that later was handed over to McDermott, who then leaked it to two newspapers.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ruled after the Supreme Court in December refused to hear the broader constitutional challenge by McDermott over whether he has legal protection as a lawmaker.

Hogan earlier had found the Washington Democrat violated a federal wiretapping law and ordered him to pay $60,000 in damages to Boehner, along with "reasonable" attorney fees.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/01/boehner.call/

The Republicans are the first to scream "violation of privacy" when there phone calls are intercepted (Boehner) or they are caught in questionable sexual conduct in a pubic place (Larry Craig and others). But when it comes to the privacy of ordinary people including their Democratic colleagues, let the Bushies hear, read and watch what they want. Talk about a double standard.

[lordsummerisle]

4. Boehner...

today's Worst Person in the World...

[chill_wind]

5. And the top recipient$? 2004, 2006, 2008?

Bush has promises to keep:
2004:

Bush, George W (R) $537,280

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=B08&cycle=2004&recipdetail=A&mem=Y&sortorder=U


But he's not the only one. Breakdown of just AT&T:

AT&T

2004

Rank Candidate Office Amount

Delegate Bush, George W $212,920
Senate Kerry, John $93,547
Senate McCain, John $37,000
Senate Daschle, Tom $33,375
House Markey, Edward J $28,500
Senate Obama, Barack $27,775
Senate Dorgan, Byron L $27,300
House Barton, Joe $24,550
House John, Chris $24,500
House Sessions, Pete $24,000
Senate Lincoln, Blanche $23,250

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000076&type=P&sort=A&cycle=2004



2006

Rank Candidate Office Amount

House Ferguson, Mike $63,450
House Hastert, Dennis $33,500
Senate Sununu, John E $22,500
House Bonilla, Henry $22,200
Senate Stevens, Ted $22,000
Senate Ensign, John $20,750
House Sessions, Pete $20,500
Senate Allen, George $19,250
House Bode, Denise $18,550
Senate DeMint, James W $18,500

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000076&type=P&sort=A&cycle=2006


2008

Rank Candidate Office Amount

Senate McCain, John $138,605
Senate Obama, Barack $87,406
Senate Clinton, Hillary $83,292
House Emanuel, Rahm $48,450
House Larson, Lyle $24,100
Senate Rockefeller, Jay $22,000
Delegate Giuliani, Rudolph W $18,500
House Paul, Ron $17,063
House Ellsworth, Brad $14,500
Delegate Thompson, Fred $14,120

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000000076