Geez... Where do I start?
Qwest was asked
to do some no-so nice stuff:A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.
Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.
[snip]
In May 2006, USA Today reported that the NSA had been secretly collecting the phone-call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by major telecom firms. Qwest, it reported, declined to participate because of fears that the program lacked legal standing.
They didn't do said no-so-nice stuff. Because the program "lacked legal standing" which I think is a fancy way of saying "illegal".
So, that is interesting (but not really new)... The Bush Administration was doing something illegal (I know, shocking).
But this was before 9/11! So that means that (a) not only did their illegal data mining not prevent the terrorist attacks but (b) their desire to illegally count the number of times you call you girlfriend was a decision independent of planes crashing into buildings. I don't think that is what they've been telling us for the last six years.
Now, a guy on the business end of an insider trading trial isn't exactly the most credible guy around. But given what we've learned over the last 6 years about the Bush Administration, is there anyone short of Rush Limbaugh and Dana Perino who is going to stand up and claim this is untrue? I didn't think so.
And because Qwest didn't play ball Cheney-style, they cut them off other unrelated government contracts. Some would call that 'not rewarding bad behavior'. Others would call it blackmail.
Finally, there is a new FISA bill winding its way through the corridors of Capitol Hill as we speak. One of the most hotly contested aspects of it is to include immunity for Telecom companies who broke the law when they gave the US Government access to private information without one of those messy little warrants. Some folks don't want to give immunity and others are making a big deal of it. Bush said he'd veto anything without immunity for telecoms. I doubt that is Bush is overly concerned with keeping Telecom company execs out of prison as much as he is concerned with the messy trials and all the other messy crimes our government has been committing since Cheney got his dirty fingers on the levers of power. I don't have a fully formed opinion on Telecom immunity. I can't honestly say what I would do if some high-level government types showed up at my office in black SUVs with tinted windows and talking into the radio in the palm of their hand. That can be pretty intimidating and when my government asks me to do something ("You mind stepping out of the car, sir?"), I usually do it. The real criminals here are not the Telecom executives who OK'd this program, it is the guys in black SUVs that asked them to do it. I'll bet my next student loan that Dick Cheney's hands are on this somewhere. That guy just
hates privacy!
One of the main reasons I don't want immunity is we can learn what the heck this is all about during the inevitable trial.
What really gets me about all this is that this was going on pre-9/11, but they then used 9/11 to justify it. Grrr.