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Protecting America doesn’t require immunizing telecoms |
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Written by the Editorial Board
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Monday, 25 February 2008 |
Editor’s Note: Click here to read a different opinion.
Practically every tool the Bush administration has requested to protect the American people after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has been at its disposal, regardless of whether it was his party or the Democrats controlling Congress.
After all, national security typically triumphs over political sectarianism.
[P]rotecting America must be the priority — not protecting AT&T. But, now, the financial security of AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunication giants appears to trump America’s safety. President Bush is threatening to veto his own surveillance program if the U.S. House does not include a sweetheart immunity deal for such telecom corporations.
The telecoms are facing lawsuits as a result of their cooperation with the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic spying program – later christened the “terrorist surveillance program” – since 2001, well before the program was blessed by Congress in 2007.
That year, Bush, in urging Congress to approve the spying program, wrote the following: “Protecting America is our most solemn obligation,” according to the New York Times.
We couldn’t agree with him more. Particularly since the Protect America Act of 2007 has expired, protecting America must be the priority — not protecting AT&T.
The question should not be whether telecom companies should get immunity from lawsuits. That argument can and should be hashed out at a later date. The crucial question is whether America will be safer with the Protect America Act and whether the proposed law is even constitutional.
Granted, there are legitimate questions about the constitutionality of allowing the National Security Agency to spy on all foreign communications with any “suspected terrorists” even when one party may be in the United States and entitled to the Fourth Amendment’s protections. In this instance, however, a majority of Democrats in both the House and Senate are convinced and have aligned with their Republican colleagues in support of this program—that is, on everything but the telecom immunity. The Senate bill provides it; the House bill does not.
We should be concerned about our national safety before we worry about corporate forgiveness. It has always been the purported policy of the Bush administration to make the safety of Americans the top priority. Let’s keep it that way.
[CNet, Wired] - Executive Editor Justin Hemlepp, CONCURRING in part, and DISSENTING in part.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Protect America Act of 2007 “allows for massive, untargeted collection of international communications without court order or meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts. It contains virtually no protections for the U.S. end of the phone call or email, leaving decisions about the collection, mining and use of Americans’ private communications up to this administration."
Since I agree that the issue of telecom immunity should not be a roadblock to effective national security, I concur with the Board’s implication that Bush should not veto security legislation simply because it does not immunize corporations from lawsuits. However, setting aside the immunity issue, the Protect America Act would be another dangerous encroachment on the freedoms Americans hold so dear. Accordingly, I strongly dissent from the opinion that the Protect America Act should be passed at all.
[ACLU, Washington Post]
Asst. Managing Editor Dwayne Robinson abstains from all staff editorials.
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