legalize Bush’s program and grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms would ever be fulfilled. How could Congress, controlled by the ostensibly “opposition” Democratic Party, possibly whitewash the years of criminal spying on American citizens by legalizing it all and then retroactively immunizing the criminals?
But in our culture of lawlessness, there is no such thing as too much cynicism. Sure enough, on September 19, 2007, there appeared in the New York Times an article by James Risen on a variety of surveillance issues. Buried toward the end was the following passage, strongly suggesting that congressional Democrats were indeed ready, as always, to do as they were told.
Mr. McConnell…pushed for a provision that would grant legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that secretly cooperated with the N.S.A. on the warrantless program. Those companies, now facing lawsuits, have never been officially identified.
Democratic Congressional aides say they believe that a deal is likely to provide protection for the companies.
This anonymously leaked announcement came with little warning and was initially confounding. Even leaving aside righteous considerations of the rule of law and the like, why would Democrats want to help bury a potentially costly Republican crime scandal as they headed into an election year?
Immunity for Sale, Telecoms Buying
The answer—which should have been obvious from the start—quickly became clear: Democrats were being deluged with massive amounts of money and other forms of corporate largesse from the telecom industry in exchange for supporting full-scale retroactive immunity, which the telecoms viewed as particularly necessary given that the customer lawsuits against them were rapidly advancing through the courts. In September, Newsweek ’s Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reported: “Congressional staffers said this week that some version of the [telecom immunity] proposal is likely to pass—in part because of a high-pressure lobbying campaign warning of dire consequences if the lawsuits proceed.”
The Newsweek reporters detailed a “secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits” against the telecoms. The campaign was being waged by “the nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House.” Isikoff and Hosenball made clear that the drive for immunity was fueled by the likelihood of more losses for the telecoms in America’s courts of law: immunity, they wrote, had “taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed.”
The Newsweek reporters further revealed that the lobbyist army deployed by the telecom industry was fully bipartisan. It included leading former GOP officials, such as Bush 41 attorney general William Barr, then serving as Verizon’s general counsel; Brad Berenson, a former assistant White House counsel under Bush 43, on behalf of AT&T; and former (and now again current) GOP senator Dan Coats on behalf of Sprint. Also toiling for the telecoms were former high-level Democratic officials, such as the Clinton deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and the Clinton State Department official (and current national security adviser to Obama) Tom Donilon, both on behalf of Verizon. Many of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington—former officials from both political parties—were thus using their relationships with current political officials to help extract retroactive immunity for the telecom giants and getting paid quite well for the influence peddling.
Lobbyist disclosure statements revealed that just in the first three months of 2008, AT&T spent $5.2 million on lobbyist fees (putting it well ahead of its 2007 pace, when it spent about $17 million for the entire year). In the same first quarter of 2008, Verizon spent $4.8 million on
But in our culture of lawlessness, there is no such thing as too much cynicism. Sure enough, on September 19, 2007, there appeared in the New York Times an article by James Risen on a variety of surveillance issues. Buried toward the end was the following passage, strongly suggesting that congressional Democrats were indeed ready, as always, to do as they were told.
Mr. McConnell…pushed for a provision that would grant legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that secretly cooperated with the N.S.A. on the warrantless program. Those companies, now facing lawsuits, have never been officially identified.
Democratic Congressional aides say they believe that a deal is likely to provide protection for the companies.
This anonymously leaked announcement came with little warning and was initially confounding. Even leaving aside righteous considerations of the rule of law and the like, why would Democrats want to help bury a potentially costly Republican crime scandal as they headed into an election year?
Immunity for Sale, Telecoms Buying
The answer—which should have been obvious from the start—quickly became clear: Democrats were being deluged with massive amounts of money and other forms of corporate largesse from the telecom industry in exchange for supporting full-scale retroactive immunity, which the telecoms viewed as particularly necessary given that the customer lawsuits against them were rapidly advancing through the courts. In September, Newsweek ’s Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reported: “Congressional staffers said this week that some version of the [telecom immunity] proposal is likely to pass—in part because of a high-pressure lobbying campaign warning of dire consequences if the lawsuits proceed.”
The Newsweek reporters detailed a “secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits” against the telecoms. The campaign was being waged by “the nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House.” Isikoff and Hosenball made clear that the drive for immunity was fueled by the likelihood of more losses for the telecoms in America’s courts of law: immunity, they wrote, had “taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed.”
The Newsweek reporters further revealed that the lobbyist army deployed by the telecom industry was fully bipartisan. It included leading former GOP officials, such as Bush 41 attorney general William Barr, then serving as Verizon’s general counsel; Brad Berenson, a former assistant White House counsel under Bush 43, on behalf of AT&T; and former (and now again current) GOP senator Dan Coats on behalf of Sprint. Also toiling for the telecoms were former high-level Democratic officials, such as the Clinton deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and the Clinton State Department official (and current national security adviser to Obama) Tom Donilon, both on behalf of Verizon. Many of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington—former officials from both political parties—were thus using their relationships with current political officials to help extract retroactive immunity for the telecom giants and getting paid quite well for the influence peddling.
Lobbyist disclosure statements revealed that just in the first three months of 2008, AT&T spent $5.2 million on lobbyist fees (putting it well ahead of its 2007 pace, when it spent about $17 million for the entire year). In the same first quarter of 2008, Verizon spent $4.8 million on
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