Why they really want telecom immunity

By Libby
Updated below

No matter what they say, it's all about shutting down the lawsuits to cover up the criminality.

But lawyers for the plaintiffs say that if the suit were allowed to proceed, internal AT&T documents would verify the engineer’s account.

“What he saw,” said Bruce Afran, a New Jersey lawyer representing the plaintiffs along with Carl Mayer, “was decisive evidence that within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”

I think this program is bigger and deeper than our wildest imaginings and it occurs to me that their first domestic targets would be the Democratic leadership. The threat of exposing a few well placed, damning dossiers would surely explain their incomprehensible failure to mount an effective opposition all these years.

Wasn't that what Watergate was supposed to accomplish? Nixon didn't have the technology to do it so easily, so he got caught. Bush didn't, until now. But if he gets telecom immunity, he'll get away with it. I've seen some talk that this isn't a fight worth having, but considering this new evidence, I couldn't disagree more.

Update: As always, Glenn Greenwald has much more to say about this.