Privatizing The Constitution

by digby

According to this site, a General Counsel of a large communications corporation makes around $300,000 a year, before bonuses, stock options and the rest. One assumes that he or she also has many Ivy league trained attorneys on staff and retains at least one outside law firm, probably more, which bills the company at top rates. All of these people are undoubtedly among the highest quality corporate lawyers in the world.

And yet the Bush administration wants the people of this country to grant their employers immunity from lawsuits brought by ordinary Americans because their lawyers took the word of the Bush administration that they weren’t breaking the law by eavesdropping on their customers without a warrant. We are supposed to believe that the best lawyers in the world — who specialize in the field of communications — didn’t know nothin’ bout no fourth amendment.

What a precedent this sets. The government can “privatize” spying on citizens — or any other unconstitutional activity — and promise the corporate contributors who get the contracts that they will be granted retroactive immunity for the laws they’ve broken. If nobody can sue them in court, then there is no avenue to legally pursue the case and determine its constitutionality. (Privatizing the CIA with a deal like this would certainly solve those messy issues about torture. If I were Blackwater, I’d be kicking some ass right now to get their deals in writing.)

Those corporations knew exactly what they were doing. Not one of the lawyers they employed could have possibly believed that it was ok to take the government’s “word” for it that they weren’t breaking the law. In fact, I think it’s highly, highly unlikely they ever would have done it if they hadn’t been promised in advance that they would never be held liable for it.

So today, we are once again trying to make the Democratic leadership take a stand for the constitution. It’s wearying and depressing that we have to prod them to do the right thing on issues like this, but we do. To that end it would be very helpful if you would sign this letter to Harry Reid asking him to honor the hold Chris Dodd has put on any legislation that offers amnesty to these corporations that broke the law.

The Senate is considering a bill that would grant immunity to any telecom company that assisted in the administration’s illegal wiretapping. Chris Dodd promised to put a hold on any such bill, and Joe Biden and Barack Obama pledged to uphold it. We believe that any bill coming before the Senate that includes provisions for so-called ‘amnesty’ for large companies involved in illegally spying on Americans should be opposed, and have authored a letter to this effect addressed to Majority Leader Reid. You can co-sign it below. The letter will also be sent to Senate Democratic leadership and the Senate Judiciary Committee members. You can read the full text of the letter here.

You can also call Senator Harry Reid at 202-224-3542

These gigantic corporations apparently just saluted smartly when Dick Cheney told them that the fourth amendment no longer applied to their companies. That was a huge mistake. If they broke the law, no matter who told them it was “ok”, they should have to face the consequences in court just like anyone else who did such a thing.

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