Retroactive Immunity FISA Debate for Telecoms

23Feb08

The retroactive immunity for telecoms debate is not a needless fixation by liberals.  The driving issue is whether we are a nation of laws during times of peace and equally a nation of laws during times of war. 

The government and its supporters bellowed then, and taunt now,  that those who advocate lawful conduct by government during times of emergencies and necessity are naïve.  Who is right, and why does it matter?   

The “necessity for extra-legal executive powers” is the same argument that dictators in totalitarian states use to justify their extra-legal acts.  Call it the Mussolini argument.  Yes, Mussolini managed to get the trains are running on time, but arguing in favor of a his abandonment of Italian law by showcasing his resulting success is a polemic taken well on to the ice of a slippery slope.   

Now if the Mussolini analogy does not work for you, call it the Albert Speer corporate collaboration defense argument at the Nuremberg trials. Speer spent 20 years in prison for, in his words, being the “good Nazi” in support of Hitler’s war materials effort and other extra-legal acts against humanity:  acts that Hitler’s government justified under the necessity according to the times argument.    

There are many examples, but placing blind trust in a government and its corporate collaborators that have already been proved willing to violate no less than our own 4^th Amendment, one of the keystones of our free democracy, is a precedent that nurtures future renegade acts by government and its co-conspirators against its citizens.

Instead, a different precedent needs to be set:  one that supports future commitment of our government and any of its collaborators to follow the law of our Constitution.  

Those tempted by the argument that Mussolini and Hitler were unworthy and evil destroyers of the rule of law, and who posit that our leaders are cut from a wholly different cloth, i.e., that our leaders are, instead,  stalwart defenders of freedom and democracy even as they take “strong” action fueled by the necessity of terror,  need to ask why our guys had to violate the very bedrock of the legal basis for our freedom, and opened the door for further erosion of those precious hard won freedoms that are built into our Constitution and our very way of life. 

We are not a nation of benevolent leaders,  we are supposed to be a nation of laws.  If I have a choice,  I will take life under the legal restraint of a Constitution over my blind faith in a leader.  This unnecessary violation of FISA law by some of the telecoms to aid and abet illegal spying by our government on its own citizens was not at the margins,  and not part of some vague legalistic debate. 

The federal government along with complicit telecommunications companies committed felonious acts in violation of specific federal statutes that issue forth in a direct line from the 4^th Amendment our Constitution.   

It is not naïve to believe that allowing these lawbreakers to go unpunished sets a precedent for future government leaders, one of which just might be a Mussolini or worse.  Naivety is believing that it can’t happen here. 

To paraphrase our President:  democracy and freedom take hard work,  hard work.  I would add,  it takes courage, tenacity, and clarity of thought under fire. 

Filed under: 4th Amendment, FISA, constitution, constitutional law, electronic surveillance, history, retroactive immunity, retroactive immunity for telecom, spying, terror, wiretap   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: 4th Amendment, constitution, FISA, retroactive immunity for telecom