Feinstein favors lawbreaking telecos

By Libby It's no great surprise given her relentless support of every rule of law trashing request from the White House that DiFi has come out in favor of teleco immunity. She trots out the GOP talking point that companies should not be “held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities.” Maybe she should speak more with her colleagues. As Russ Feingold pointed out yesterday: Telecom companies that cooperate with a government wiretap request are already immune from lawsuits, as long as they get a court order or a certification from the attorney general that the wiretap follows all applicable statutes. This immunity provision in current law protects companies that respond to legitimate government requests for assistance. It also protects innocent Americans who expect that their communications will remain private unless the government and the companies are acting lawfully. Meanwhile, Mark Klein, the whistleblower who blew the lid off the Bush administration's illegal domestic surveillance program lays it out in simple terms. "The president has not presented this truthfully," said Klein, a 62-year old retiree. "He said it was about a few people making calls to the Mideast. But I know this physical equipment. It copies everything. There's no selection of anything, at all -- the splitter copies entire data streams from the internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything." C & L has the video of Klein making his case and Christy has the contact info to register your objections with the Committee to any immunity. We still have a small chance of preventing this travesty from occurring. If we allow them to shut down the lawsuits, we will never know how deeply our privacy has been violated by our own government. Make some calls.