• SeanRenaud said on Mar 14, 2008....

  They are being given immunity for sharing customer information.  I gotta side with Bush on this one.  Either they are immune or they aren't.  If they aren't even if you found Osama Bin Ladin, prevented 9/11 and successfully averted the plots of 24 seasons 1-7 with in a seven day period, Osama could still legally sue AT&T because they had no right to give up the information.  Obviously in that case the judge would likely through it out, but what about legit persons of interest?

• bloc said on Mar 14, 2008....

  
  I'm surprised you jumped to such hasty and inaccurate conclusions. Let's analyze this.
  
  1. Are we a nation of laws or not? We have laws that clearly prescribe what needs to be done for spying. Under FISA the government can begin spying on anyone immediately, without a warrant, but they have to file for the warrant within a set time period which varies but is usually something like a few days.
  This law is perfectly suited for averting plots of 24 seasons 1-7. Osama could not sue if FISA is followed. Bush choose to break the law intentionally and I see no good reason for it. Why should we allow the telecommunications companies immunity for breaking this law which is sufficient for keeping us safe?
  
  2. We're talking about spying on americans, not Bin Laden. We have no idea who was illegally spied on and why. Why should we grant immunity for this illegal behavior when we don't know how bad the crime is, and we know that the law which was broken provided the means to keep us safe?

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 14, 2008....

  1.  See that's the thing, obviously something in this system doesn't work the way that it sounds like it works.  Cus I see no other reason why you'd need to grant the TC immunity at all.  I mean it's not AT&T that files the paperwork is the FBI and the CIA no?
   
  2.  We're talking about spying on suspected terrorists, not on cheating wives.  And there needs to be oversight but I can't see AT&T cooperating if they have to be afraid of being sued.  I mean honestly there are enough people who simply hate big bussiness that any lawsuit they entere they are going to either lose or settle out of court.

• bloc said on Mar 14, 2008....

  1. there was no paperwork. The telecos are not allowed to turn over information without a warrant. I used to work for one. What happened here is that they turned over peoples data without a warrant. Even if you what you are saying is right, there is no reason to grant immunity to them right?
  
  2. are we? We have no idea who was spied on, and there was no oversite. The reason we require warrants is to ensure that they are spyghing on terrorists and not law abiding citizens. Why did Bush and the telecos break the law without filing for warrants through FISA? Who knows, and I can't see how any well meaning person would grant immunity for a crime before knowing the extent of the crime.
  
  Why should we grant immunity for law breaking? I have yet to hear a good reason. If they followed the law there would be no fear of being sued. This idea that we should give people immunity for lawsuits when they break the law is nonsensical. Lawsuits are good when the prevent people from breaking the law.
  
  Again I ask, should we be a nation of laws? If the answer is yes, then how can you support Bush's view of this?
  

• bloc said on Mar 14, 2008....

  "And there needs to be oversight but I can't see AT&T cooperating if they have to be afraid of being sued. "
  
  I believe this is a rhetorical trick used by the Bush admin. What is meant by "cooperate"? If by "cooperate" you mean, "continue breaking the law with us", then yes, they will hesitate to continue breaking the law if they can be sued for breaking the law. Why is this a bad thing again?
  

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 14, 2008....

  But as you stated if FISA is obeyed they are ok.  But what control do they have over the FBI or the CIA? 

• bloc said on Mar 14, 2008....

  They didn't obey FISA and that is the issue. The FBI asks them for someones private information. The telecoms are not supposed to give that information if they do not get a warrant. They gave it without warrants, i.e. they broke the law.

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 14, 2008....

  But if warrants can be issued after the fact why wouldn't AT&T issue the information and then wait for the warrant?  Now granted this only holds for whatever the standard waiting period is, but you don't need to be creative to figure out that well we'll just open each one as a separate investigation.  Then AT&T has the option of either not turning over the information that legally they are obligated to (least I would imagine they are because the warrants can be issued later) and risk getting sued and probably held responsible for whatever goes wrong if it goes wrong.  Or giving up the information and then getting sued if the FBI fails to turn in their paperwork.
   
  The fact that this is even up for discussion suggests that the government can't force the TC to aid them.  Which honestly I'm shocked that they can't force compliance when there is implied public safety involved.

• bloc said on Mar 14, 2008....

  ah, I see. The problem is that the government says the warrant is in the mail, at&t gives up the info. 3 days later they don't get the warrant. The government comes back with a new request and says, "the warrant is in the mail". 3 days go by and again no warrant.
  At some point AT&T is breaking the law by continuing to play the nudge, nudge, wink, wink game.

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 14, 2008....

  But what happens to AT&T if they don't play the shell game and a major attack goes down?  People are deeply stupid.  Do you really think that in a world with 3k deaths or a major political leader that anybody is going to say.  Well AT&T was protecting our personal privacy and we can't blame them?  They'd be lucky to still be in bussiness 6 months later.  It's not like stupid kneejerk reactions never happen in America.
   
  Besides legally at what point is AT&T breaking the law? 

• bloc said on Mar 14, 2008....

  that's a good question. I'm not sure how it works for FISA spying prewarrant. I'm going to try to find out. Either way, I don't think we should grant immunity for a crime which we don't know the extent of.
  

• silverwhisper said on Mar 15, 2008....

  telcos need to be criminally and civilly liable for their violations of their policies, end of discussion.
  
  i wanna see a hundreds of billions class action lawsuit against AT&T. i'm not up on my tort law but i believe breach of contract re: user policies in force at the time would be an actionable cause.
  
  and at the next shareholder meeting, the chairman had better be toast.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Mar 15, 2008....

  @sean
  also, we don't know that the feds lied to the telcos that the warrants were in the mail.
  

• bloc said on Mar 15, 2008....

  More on Bush's secret spying.
  
  "Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority.

  The White House did not say why it was necessary to change the rules governing the board when it issued Bush’s order late last month. But critics say Bush’s order is consistent with a pattern of steps by the administration that have systematically scaled back Watergate-era intelligence reforms." source
  

  
  
  Why again should we offer immunity for criminal spying to anyone helping Bush's abuses of power?
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 15, 2008....

  @Silver:  Honestly go for it, just understand that I would be shocked if any of them ever let anything ever go to the government again for any reason after that.  They are bussinessmen first.  Hell their willingness to ship jobs overseas shows they are mostly bussinessmen first and Americans second.  They'd let the country burn before aiding a government that wouldn't protect them.  Hell I know I sure would.
   
  @bloc:  No we don't know.  We can only make assumptions based on what we see Congress doing. 
   
  What we know here is that giving away private information without a warrant is illegal. 
   
  So what we are ultimately asking is for AT&T to be held responsible for something it has minimal control over.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 16, 2008....

  sean: they made the decision to do it, and i say to hell with 'em. they had control. they just didn't choose to exercise it.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Mar 16, 2008....

  they don't have minimal control, they have almost total control since they control the information. The only circumstance in which they have minimal control is the FISA situation where the government gets the warrant later. We have no idea if this is what was happening. 
  
  
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 16, 2008....

  But how often is the FISA situation occuring?  What constituted probable cause in these cases?  Its not like terrorists have an exceedingly long shelf life.
   
  Once again who do you think is going to back AT&T if something does go down and they refused to cooperate? 
   
  Following 9/11 I didn't hear a single voice saying that these things happen and are tragic but unavoidable (which is true) they were and largely still are screaming that Airport security is too lax.

• bloc said on Mar 16, 2008....

  i don't get your objection. If the fbi goes to the telco's and says "give us sean's phone calls but we don't have a warrant" then that is illegal. It isn't AT&T's fault if the FBI doesn't get a warrant. 
  
  
  This gets back to the central issue. Are we a nation of laws or not. Should telcos follow the law or not and should there be consequences for not following the law.

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 16, 2008....

  But under FISA they are allowed to say it's in the mail.  If telco refuses and something does happen who is going to defend them?  Who is going to say well I'm glad that they valued Sean's privacy so he could do X.

• bloc said on Mar 16, 2008....

  but we do not know that is what happened. How can we grant immunity without know the extent of the crime?

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 16, 2008....

  We can't.  The bottom line is that it's dangerous to grant immunity without knowing the crime but we have to understand that without immunity they aren't going to cooperate.  Its not worth the risk.

• bloc said on Mar 16, 2008....

  they will cooperate, if we give them a warrant! Also, they will cooperate if the trust the government. What you are assuming is that the can't trust the government. If that's the case we need to fix that, not grant immunity for unknown crimes.
  

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 16, 2008....

  Nobody trusts the government.  And yeah everybody cooperates with a warrant, you don't have a choice at that point.  But the whole this is an immediate problem but warrant is in the mail shit.  It won't fly if they don't know they have immunity. 
   
  I know I wouldn't.

• bloc said on Mar 16, 2008....

  well what if we gave them immunity just for that. What's happening here is immunity for anything related to spying. Smells very fishy to me.

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 16, 2008....

  Good enough for me.

• kelly said on Mar 19, 2008....

  I get more laughs out of Bush.  His position is that we have to give the telcos immunity for this illegal action or else they won't help the government do illegal things in the future.  The absolutely amazing thing is that he can spout this stuff without even appearing embarrassed!  Quite a trick, that.
  
  
  And we have people like Sean helping them both to sell out the American public.

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 19, 2008....

  Without immunity they won't help the government conduct legal things in the future.  It's not worth the risk when they know they can't win in court.  Have you seen some of the lawsuits that have been succesfuly brought against corporations?  Like Hot Coffee at McD's?  I wish I had the entire list but it's pretty obvious that jurors will side against big bussiness even if big bussiness did nothing even remotely wrong.

• kelly said on Mar 22, 2008....

  Simply put, no one needs immunity to do something that is legal.  Immunity is only granted for actions that are illegal.  So, Bush asking for immunity is a blatant admission of the illegality of what happened.  The telcos do not deserve a reward for breaking the law and neither does Bush.
  
  
  I'm not sure why I bother responding to an admitted sociopath.

• bloc said on Mar 22, 2008....

  "Without immunity they won't help the government conduct legal things in the future. "
  
  
  The idea that someone will hesitate to cooperate legally because they can't get immunity for illegal activities doesn't make any sense to me. 

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 22, 2008....

  We've covered this with the whole FISA thing.  Currently it is legal for them to give out the information with a simple "the Warrant's being written" if the warrent never comes even if they don't give any more information they've got no way of proving they did nothing wrong.  Innocent until proven guilty might be the way that the world works in criminal court.  But in civil court it's guilty until proven innocent, particularly if you've got money.
   
  P.S.  Fuck right off Kelly. 

• bloc said on Mar 22, 2008....

  "particularly if you've got money."
  
  
  And the telco's have more money than anyone suing them. 

• SeanRenaud said on Mar 22, 2008....

  So?  Do I really need to list the amount of stupid lawsuits that have been won against corporations?  There is such a strong enough anti-money sentiment in this country that you'll win your lawsuit and this is a legit invasion of privacy.  Not like the lawsuits that are won all the time where it's clearly that the person who filed the lawsuit was an idiot

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