Why oppose retroactive immunity for telecom companies that sold out to the government's domestic spying program?
Because it's retroactive immunity. That ought to be reason enough.
But in case it isn't, here's another reason: the companies don't need it, and the presumption ought to be that if the law is fine the way it is, don't fix what ain't broke.
The same goes for the "compromise" proposal being floated by Sen. Arlen Specter. (And here we have another rule of thumb: if it's a compromise being floated by Arlen Specter, it's almost certainly meaningless and it sucks on the substance.) What is Scottish Compromise Specter's awful mish-mash du jour?
At a markup on a bill to overhaul the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to offer an amendment that would make the federal government — instead of the phone companies — the defendant in about 40 pending lawsuits across the country.
Why is Specter's awful mish-mash du jour so stupid this time?
Because that's what the companies are already trying to do. On their own. Under existing law. The telecom companies that are being sued have already made pleadings in court that the real culprit here is the federal government, and that therefore the feds ought to be brought into the case, where they can explain themselves (or, as was actually the case, claim that they don't have to explain themselves because what they were up to is a "state secret" and you can't know about it).
The point is, Specter's stupid compromise would change the law in a way that isn't necessary, since the companies and the government have already both figured out, using the good, old fashioned and pre-existing federal court system, how to achieve exactly this effect.
With one difference: right now, the poor, oppressed telecom giants actually have to pay their lawyers to convince a court to let this work. And that's sad. Whenever a giant telecommunications corporation has to pay a lawyer money instead of paying a lobbyist money so that the law can be changed to say they don't have to pay lawyers, a pony dies.
Why do you want to kill ponies?
The existing law and the existing court system are dealing with these issues already. The companies say "the government made me do it." The government says, "we can neither confirm nor deny that, but it doesn't matter because 'national security' says you can't even decide this case, anyway." Now, as it happens, the companies are losing these cases, at least in the early stages. And that's why they're panicking and trying to change the law before they lose once and for all. Or at least before they have to pay any more money in order to win.
Retroactive immunity excuses them from this expense, and all the lawyers can sleep in. Specter's stupid compromise lets half the lawyers (the ones the corporations pay for) sleep in, while the other half (the ones you pay for with your taxes) have to get up and try to save the ponies.
Both options are corporate welfare, and if Senators can't bring themselves to reject these proposals on the ground that they're stupid and un-American, perhaps they might be willing to do so on the grounds that their unnecessary and wasteful.
The Senate Judiciary Committee markup is (supposed to be) underway. Pick the reason best suited to your Senators and give them a call today.
UPDATE: Markup delayed until next week. Gives us more time to tell Senators what we think of answering a sell-out of privacy with corporate giveaways.
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