[link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302323.html|Washington Post]

The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass a law that would halt dozens of lawsuits charging phone companies with invading ordinary citizens' privacy through a post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program.

The measure is part of a legislative package drafted by the Justice Department to relax provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that restrict the administration's ability to intercept electronic communications in the United States. If passed, the proposed changes would forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the program's details through Congress or the court system.

The proposal states that "no action shall lie . . . in any court, and no penalty . . . shall be imposed . . . against any person" for giving the government information, including customer records, in connection with alleged intelligence activity the attorney general certifies "is, was, would be or would have been" intended to protect the United States from terrorist attack. The measure, which has not yet been filed, is contained in a proposed amendment to the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill.

Hope fully this doesn't get passed with that measure included, it amounts to a blanket immunity for providing information to the government. Anything the Attorney General certifies is, was, or will be used or was at any point meant to have been used in a terrorist investigation.

Not only is it outrageous on the face of it. But it is a direct response to the problems with FBI has had with illegal information gathering. After admitting there is a problem and it would be stopped, they instead are moving to legalize their abusive tactics.

Jay

Not only is it outrageous on the face of it. But it is a direct response to the problems with FBI has had with illegal information gathering. After admitting there is a problem and it would be stopped, they instead are moving to legalize their abusive tactics.

Did you really think they would not choose this course of action?

The open bluntness of the move surprises me, that is about it. Under a more deft operator, like Bush Sr, they would have played along for a year or two and then slipped something into an unrelated bill.

But playing well with others does not seem to be something this group has ever learned. They can barely pretend for short periods of time, let along actually do it.

Now what was that saying... Oh yes: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I think it was "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power is a worthwhile goal."

Jay