There appears to be a valid case for the telecom immunity legislation. It’s hard to argue that corporations should have to pay for complying with what has become an unpopular and possibly illegal government policy. They didn’t make the policy they simply complied with the law as it was perceived at the time. Congress is just protecting these companies from the reflected ire represented by these class action suits.
Wait for it... you know what’s coming.
The day I sing a song of woe for the corporate libertines feasting on our labor and tightening the chains that bind us to this corrupt system is day I sell my genitals to science.
This administration has insulated its illegal intelligence activities through subterfuge and subversion of the legislative process. It has made legal what has historically been unconstitutional through incomprehensible laws passed by bought and sold congressional cronies. So now the people have kicked open a backdoor. They now want to hold responsible those who we directly trusted with our information for releasing it in what we feel is an unjust manner. In this way the people hope to turn those who have been traditionally allies of the oppressor state into allies of the public good. Divide and Conquer. Cry Havoc.
The state now wants to say ‘no you can’t go after our friends for aiding us in illegal activities’. They want to give the telecoms the right to use the same defense that so historically failed the Nuremburg defendants. They were just following orders. Now every con and neo-con from Dickie Thornburg to Johnny ‘The Soaring Eagle’ Ashcroft is popping up to say how the telecoms need immunity to insure future cooperation with government security measures is not hampered by a corporation’s fear of frivolous lawsuits. Again they push the message that to save freedom we must sacrifice it. They refer to the telecoms as private citizens to try and solidify the idea of corporate citizenship. They are nothing if not persistent and constant in their waging of the information wars.
If the state manages to close every channel of recourse the people may seek to address so a transgression so widely reviled it can only lead to the people creating their own avenue to justice. I hope they don’t continue the trend of altering the system to suit their needs instead of ours because a frustrated people can easily become a desperate people and desperate people have nothing to lose from desperate measures.