Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 1264 Editor's Choice: 4
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@cecilbeanie
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The telecoms did not knowingly break the law.
One thing I think no one else has pointed out is that the telecoms helped write FISA. So any claim that they didn't know violating it was illegal is naive or false.
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Section A of the WaPo!
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's pretty good news, Glenn. That's right up there with the defense contractor ads. All the weasels of Washington scan those.
next you need to put ads on the Metro (Orange Line!).
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@Anandasubramanian
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks so much for today's chuckle-of-the-day!
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Another idiot: Cockwork Smurf
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]here goes ...
I'm not a big privacy advocate, or to be more specific I subscribe to the much more widely accepted notion of privacy that exists out side the US. That being the idea that you have a right to privacy those things you keep private.
Clearly you have no idea what privacy is or how it works, let alone how the US constitution comes into play.
Meaning within your four walls, by yourself. Once you invite a second or third party into your secrets, well now that second or third party has control of that information.
When you make a phone call, log onto the internet, waive semaphore flags out your window, you have involved third parties in a public fashion.
When you make a phone call, you don't "invite" Verizon to listen in. Phone calls have never been considered public.
I know we all want to think our phone calls are private, but goodness those aren't our wires, running in and out of our house, and we know this because when we don't pay the bill they take them away.
Good logic there. Ever hear of carrier neutrality? Or is that just some law stuff a bunch of politicians got passed?
We're paying someone to be our courrier, and that currier has a right to check out the contents of what they are carrying to make sure they aren't facilitating anything unduely wicked.
Really? AT&T is already doing this? Boy, they must have a file on me for sure!
We're not shocked to find out that Fed Ex & the USPS has bomb & drug sniffing dogs going over our packages, we accept that, but when a search engine starts doing a surface scan we get all up in arms.
True. No one realixes that search engines can blow up and kill people.
Well if you want privacy, then walk over and wisper your conversation in someone elses ear, if you want to use the state or privately funded communications networks that facilitate communication around our planet, then you have to expect those states or private organizations are going to want to cover their tuchuses and make sure you're not communicating something untoward.
In the event of a terror attack or even something less grand like a mob hit, a private organization refusing to cooperate with law enforcement agencies the friends and family of the victim would have a very deep pocket in the telecom community to sue. It's a calculated risk, but one assumes that the state is operating in a legal or at least acceptable manner, and so telecom companies made the choice of law suits they wanted to fight.
Yeah, I'd like to choose the lawsuits I want to fight. Must be nice. But your comparison with the mob is apt.
It's all a question of liability, and the liability in this case is on the state for improper use and gathering of information, not on the telecom industry for taking data in their possession and distributing it to appropriate authorities in accordance to their contractual obligations to their customers.
FISA and the 4th Amendment are all a question of liability? Really? But I sympathize with your point here---the Bush administration is even more guilty than the telecoms who sought lucrative contracts by cooperating with an order they knew was illegal.
The immunity is actually more to protect the administration then the telecom agencies. The idea being that if the agencies can't be sued they can't be forced to reveal the weakness of the government's case. This of course isn't true but it's an attempt to create an additional level of buracracy to prevent the administrations abuses from becoming public.
Correct!
Sueing the telecom companies neither solves the problem nor attacks the real criminals in this story. It's just a deep pocket and an easy target for a law suit. You're going to get a lot less money and have a more of an uphill climb going against the government in a time of war, so if you want a payday, might as well go after Ma Bell, even though you knew when you got your phone the communications going over the wires weren't exactly private.
BZZZRPP! The buzzer has sounded. Ah, and you were doing so well.
Get off the stage!
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oops
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that was a typo. A good one, though.
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@AKA
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]More like the Augean stables, I'm afraid. But Smurf won't mind wallowing in King George's ordure.
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@bdlamb
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that's why I never post here / again
and yet ...
you did ...
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@LWM
[Read the article: The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're right to point to party lines, and I thought of that after I commented. But I think one needs to make a distinction between "public" and merely "insecure." At any rate, not very relevant today. You don't need to encrypt your speech to make it free (and unchilled by unreasonable search and seizure), obviously.
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@Marcella
[Read the article: Aug. 8, 1974 vs. July 9, 2008]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You don't donate today---you donate on August 8.
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Hey Chester!
[Read the article: Democrats' strategy: Strength through bowing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where's my BMW? I need to put an OBAMA sticker on it RIGHT NOW!
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The apparent irrelevancy of public opinion to Dems
[Read the article: Democrats' strategy: Strength through bowing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can no longer believe that the Democrats running Congress feel stronger when they bow.
I no longer believe that they are bowing in any real sense.
I believe they are getting exactly what they want.