Glenn:

Just as importantly, the eavesdropping here involved foreign-to-foreign communications (i.e., Iraq-to-Iraq), which nobody in Congress believes ought to require a warrant.

Presumably they thought that Blackwater had kidnapped the soldiers.

In much the same way as Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence forever foreclosed the investigation of who and what Libby was protecting with his lies and obstruction. I remember Scott McClellan saying over and over "No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than the president." If he said it once, he must have said it fifty times. I guess once Scooter was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, the president no longer wanted to get to the bottom of it since he removed the only lever that might have pried the cover loose. Speculation (what happens when the facts aren't known and people have to guess what they are) has it that Libby was covering for Bush and Cheney and so Bush's commutation was in fact an act of self-defense and self-preservation.

Speculation also has it that Bush's insistence on amnesty for his accomplices in his felonious assault on the law and the Constitution falls into the same category.

There is a difference between Nixon and Bush:

Nixon: I'm not a crook

Bush: I'm a crook, but a patriotic one.

It would seem that amnesty for the telecoms has less to do with national security for the USA than with job security for Bush.

Actually, the name Robert means "bright in fame".
http://tinyurl.com/ysawkm

But thanks for playing. It certainly gives us a metric for how much credence to give anything you say.

I love how blithely Americans talk about listening in on calls between foreigners, like it's the most natural - and warrant-free - thing one could do.

When Americans listen to foreigners' calls, they call it "intelligence gathering". When foreigners' calls are listened to by Americans, they call it "espionage". It works the other way around too. So the US has laws for "intelligence gathering" and against "espionage". It's another of those what-you-see-depends-on-where-you-stand thingies.

But the days of gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail, as allegedly expressed by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson 1929 when he shut down the State Department's code-breaking section, are long gone.

... of Gedonuts.

If Junya is so all-fired-up about immunizing the Telcos, then why doesn't he use his own Pardon powers to grant them that relief?

Once again, it's not the criminal liability that is the issue here. No one in this DOJ is going to prosecute the telcoms any more than they would prosecute Bush for his admitted law-breaking.

The danger to the telcoms is civil liability for breaking their contract with their subscribers. The president can't issue a pardon for that because a civil judgment does not necessarily involve an offense against the law.

The president has the constitutionally mandated right "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment" (Article II section 2 paragraph 1), but he has no power to grant reprieves and pardons from civil judgments. Removing this liability can only be done by legislation (and I'm not entirely sure that that would be countenanced by the Constitution), or, such a judgment could reversed by a court on appeal.

But I would advance the further point that inducing Congress to provide retroactive immunity for the Telcos negates not only that "civil liabilty", but their "criminal liability" as well.

Absolutely. But who ya gonna prosecute and who ya gonna put in jail. Even though a corporation is a "legal person" you can't send one to prison

A more telling reason as to why Junya would not pardon/immunize the Telcos would be that to do so would be likely taken by most as an admission of that these were crimes he himself has committed.

So what? Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence when there is a good likelihood that Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice was for the benefit of Bush and/or Cheney. Wouldn't bother Bush a bit to pardon the telecoms, but that's only part of the solution. If the telecoms get judgments against them we're talking about millions, if not billions, of dollars. That's a real hurtin'.