Sunday, March 2, 2008

dday: Immunity Is Bush Immunity

dday over at DailyKos has a diary up about a New York Times article that outs the Bush administration over what's the real reason they are pushing for this "telecom immunity". As we have said at this blog, this is now, and has always been about Bush and Cheney, it was never about the telco's.

The warnings from President Bush and his senior aides have grown more urgent over the last few weeks, now that Congress has let a temporary wiretapping law expire. But there is little sign of anxiety among many intelligence and phone industry officials.

At the Pentagon and the military’s Central Command, senior officials gave no indication of any heightened concern about the lapsing of the law. In Congress, staff members with access to updated briefings said they had not been given any specific information about lost intelligence that might endanger national security. And in the telecommunications industry, executives said it was largely business as usual.
It is the mystery of the dog that didn't bark in the night. Nobody is bitching about this because nobody cares. Well, not anybody who doesn't live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Look at this key language from Bush:
meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our nation following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He is talking about these 2 guys...

And he is right, they are only alleged to have helped. Its been some short time since the bill expired in the house due to Speaker Pelosi's efforts and what are we hearing from the Telecoms'? These people who have spent millions on politicians. Who know exactly how to 'communicate' their feelings. *crickets*

UPDATE: BOHICA has a great idea in comments, since the spying actually started right after these 2 got into office, why don't we amend the immunity language to read as starting from 9/11 onwards and listen to the caterwauling... an excellent idea.
UPDATE II: I am told that the language of the amendment actually is from 9/11 onwards, it's one of the things the Repub's feel they compromised on.