PRESIDENT BUSH SAYS: Congress should grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies to protect them from lawsuits by citizens who were subjected to warrantless wiretap surveillance.

“One of the most important tools… is the ability to monitor terrorist communications… The Congress must ensure that the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in efforts to defend America.”

DMI SAYS: “Establishing after-the-fact that it was acceptable for telecommunications companies to break the law and spy on American citizens has nothing to do with protection from terrorism, but everything to do with shielding powerful corporations from accountability for their actions. Granting retroactive immunity in this case would set a dangerous precedent for corporations to trample the rights of middle-class Americans.”  

?       Telecommunications companies, at the behest of the Bush Administration, illegally monitored American citizens’ private e-mail correspondence, phone calls, password protected web activity, and other communications. This violated Americans’ Fourth Amendment right against unwarranted searches and seizures, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the contractual rights of private customers who signed privacy agreements with these companies.

?    The Administration insists that granting retroactive immunity to these companies will ensure that they continue to cooperate willingly with requests for foreign intelligence, but the government already had legal authority to obtain this cooperation, granted by legislation that the telecommunications industry had a role in crafting 30 years ago.

?       Instead of following the thirty year old law establishing how to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance properly, and despite evidence that the overwhelming majority of requests for warrants are approved, the Administration acted above the law.

?       At least one telecommunications company refused to cooperate with the government because it knew the actions were illegal. Companies that did not do the same should not be rewarded for cooperating with Administration-sanctioned lawlessness.

?       Our civil justice system allows regular Americans to hold corporations accountable when they violate cherished rights such as those outlined in our Constitution. Granting retroactive immunity would weaken middle-class Americans’ ability to take on powerful corporations for breaking the law. What’s more, retroactive immunity would weaken the ability of middle class consumers to trust that their contracts with corporations will be honored and that the legal system will treat their constitutional rights as more than symbolic. In short, granting retroactive immunity would severely undermine Americans faith in the legal system.

?      Granting retroactive immunity also sets a dangerous precedent by giving the Administration unbridled power, under the guise of pursuing security interests, to pressure companies into violating Americans’ rights with impunity and to protect those corporations from liability for a range of other violations of the law.

?       If the Administration is concerned about protecting the public, it should recognize that Americans need protection from corporations that violate their rights and from the government entities that pressure corporations into doing so.

?    Safety and security go hand in hand, and one does not need to be compromised in pursuit of the other. Middle-class Americans cannot feel secure and safe knowing that the corporations with which they do business, and the government that is supposed to protect them, are violating their constitutional rights, and that they have no recourse for this violation.

Relevant Statistics:

?       Year in which the United States Constitution established “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”: 1791.

?       Year when the Church Committee Report concluded that a balance between Americans’ privacy rights and the country’s security interests “can, and must, be achieved,” and that government surveillance had unduly spread “beyond persons who could properly be characterized as enemies of freedom and have extended to a wide array of citizens engaging in lawful activity”: 1976.

?       Year Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed: 1978.

?       Number of warrants the federal courts approved under the FISA in 2004: 1,758.

?       Number of warrants courts rejected under FISA in 2004: 4.

?       Date on which federal district court judge ruled that "the president of the United States ... has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders" for unwarranted wiretap surveillance activities: August 17, 2006.

DMI on the 2008 State of the Union