Does anyone have any recent news on the telecom immunity issue?

[JDPriestly]

I am totally opposed to it. Does anyone know who the individuals are who are suing the telecoms? I think it would help those of us who oppose the immunity if we knew who the plaintiffs were in the cases. Surely the plaintiffs aren't keeping their names secret. Any info out there.

Putting a human (or commercial) face on the plaintiffs might get some openness on this issue.

[librechik]

1. emptywheel at firedoglake has a fascinating post on it re the INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE REQUIREMENT

which might even change your mind

(I am opposed, of course, to retroactive immunity to, but if the bill manages to include this, it is almost worth it)

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/08/the-commission-on-warrantless-wiretapping-and-fisa-compromise/

excerpt:

(1) IN GENERAL- The Commission shall--

(A) ascertain, evaluate, and report upon the facts and circumstances relating to electronic surveillance activities conducted without a warrant between September 11, 2001 and January 17, 2007;

(B) evaluate the lawfulness of such activities;

(C) examine all programs and activities relating to intelligence collection inside the United States or regarding United States persons that were in effect or operation on September 11, 2001, and all such programs and activities undertaken since that date, including the legal framework or justification for those activities; and

(much more at link)

[JDPriestly]

3. Thanks for this post. I checked the Firedog Lake post.

I do not think that a commission is appropriate. The Democrats in Congress have been complicit in the violations of our rights all along. They have not represented us well. They have not served the country well.

Bush always had the authority to wiretap foreign communications. In fact, I have the impression that we have been monitoring foreign communications for years. If the Constitution did not categorically forbid such monitoring in the U.S. itself, the monitoring would have begun long before Bush took office. And FISA permitted the Bush administration to monitor communications within the U.S. based on a showing of probably cause.

We have no evidence regarding the telecom companies motivations in agreeing to the monitoring other than the telecoms' and the administration's self-serving statements. As likely as not, the telecom companies actually agreed to the monitoring because they believed that they would obtain administration support for policies the telecoms want. For all we know, they may have conspired with the Bush administration because they wanted Bush to have the capacity to spy on the Bush administration's and big business's political opponents.

Telecom immunity or anything approaching it is unacceptable. The commission does not sound like a good idea to me. It's not a compromise. It is yet another sell-out. I do not trust Congress and especially not Steny Hoyer any further than I trust the telecom companies themselves in this matter. They all either conspired to violate the Constitution or closed their eyes to the violations when they learned about them.

We have only one Constitution, and every time it is violated with impunity, a precedent is set for future violations. Our rights under the Constitution are slowly being eroded to the point that they are not worth much at all.

[librechik]

4. besides, I see the chance of this passing under Bush as about zero

I don't know what to do, really, except hold th blue dogs to their original promise instead of coming up with some new mumbo jumbo after we had them backed down!

Damn that Steny Hoyer!

[JDPriestly]

2. I found the names of the named plaintiffs in the Electronic Frontier's

amended complaint:

13. Plaintiff Tash Hepting, a customer service manager, is an individual residing in San
Jose, California. Hepting has been a subscriber and user of AT&T Corp.’s residential long distance
telephone service since at least June 2004, and has used it to call internationally as well as
domestically.
14. Plaintiff Gregory Hicks is an individual residing in San Jose, California. Hicks, a
retired Naval Officer and systems engineer, has been a subscriber and user of AT&T Corp.’s
residential long distance telephone service since February 1995. He has regularly used this service
for calls to foreign countries including Korea, Japan and Spain.
15. Plaintiff Carolyn Jewel is an individual residing in Petaluma, California. Jewel, a
database administrator and author, has been a subscriber and user of AT&T Corp.’s Worldnet dialup
Internet service since approximately June 2000. She uses this service for web browsing and to
send and receive email, including with correspondents in foreign countries such as England,
Germany, and Indonesia.
16. Plaintiff Erik Knutzen is an individual residing in Los Angeles, California. Knutzen, a
photographer and land use researcher, was a subscriber and user of AT&T Corp.’s Worldnet dial-up
Internet service from at least October 2003 until May 2005. He used this service to send and receive
personal and professional emails, with both domestic and international correspondents, and for web
browsing, including visits to web sites hosted outside of the United States.

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/att_complaint_amended.pdf

Thanks for any additional information on the progress on the cases and our effort to let Congress know how we feel about this.

If the government wants to indemnify the telecom companies, then fine. But we have a right to know to what extent our privacy has been invaded.

[L. Coyote]

5. Go here:

http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying