The Washington Post today has an article that gets closer to the truth behind the Administration's dogged pursuit of immunity for the telecoms than most reporting on this issue so far. While most stories have echoed the administration line that it must grant the phone companies retroactive immunity in order to obtain their future cooperation in tracking terrorists, the Post story centers on what it would mean to the White House if any of the forty current lawsuits against the telecoms goes forward [Ed. note: emphasis added, of course]:
Perhaps most important, disclosures in the lawsuits could clarify the scope of the government's surveillance and establish whether, as the plaintiffs allege, it involved the massive interception of purely domestic communications with the help of the nation's largest providers: AT&T, Cingular Wireless, BellSouth, Sprint and MCI/Verizon.
"I think the administration would be very loath for folks to realize that ordinary people were being surveilled," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the lead lawsuit, against AT&T. [Bush Moves to Shield Telecommunications Firms, Washington Post, 3/2/08]
That, of course, has been the real story all along. Bush is desperately seeking immunity for himself. But it sure isn't being reported that way.
Bush & Co. have been playing the fear card like mad and the mainstream media have, to a great extent, been covering the story solely from that angle. Oh, they've questioned whether the expiration of the Protect America Act has really endangered the country (apparently not). But that's not the salient point. And that's why the WaPo article seems to me to be a breakthrough.
The emptiness and absurdity of the Admin's arguments that immunity is an issue of national security is on display in this article. The story relates how the suits against the phone companies have been stalled in the courts as a result of the admin's invocation of the "state secrets" dodge: "All discovery has been blocked so far by the administration's argument, still awaiting court resolution, that the suits are barred because they involve state secrets. "
As an example of just how these lawsuits might reveal critical state secrets, check out this argument:
Justice Department attorneys have argued that merely to confirm or deny any "intelligence" relationship with AT&T or any company "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."
Excuse me, but hasn't the President already confirmed an "intelligence relationship" with the phone companies as a result of his determined campaign to get immunity for the phone companies because of their assistance in gathering intelligence? Isn't that the entire basis of Bush's argument?
There's a curious end note to the article -- the last paragraph, in fact. It was a jarring reminder to me that the mainstream media are failing to keep the whole context of this surveillance scandal in mind as they report the story.
Last fall, former attorney general John D. Ashcroft signed a letter to top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging retroactive immunity for the companies. His consulting firm, the Ashcroft Group, was on retainer to AT&T at the time. An Ashcroft spokeswoman declined comment.
One's initial (cynical) reaction might understandably be, Oh, sure, of course Ashcroft is supporting immunity. And the Post's inclusion of this news morsel in the last paragraph of today's story might be aimed at just that sort of reaction. After all, his letter was sent last fall, not recently.
Here's my problem with this final paragraph. How can the Post stick this in at the end of an otherwise very good report and not remind readers of Ashcroft's previous dramatic involvement in this very issue?
Has the Post -- and the rest of the mainstreamers -- completely forgotten their own frenzy over the infamous Ashcroft - Gonzales showdown in Ashcroft's hospital room? That's the incident where acting Attorney General James Comey had refused to renew Department of Justice approval for the eavesdropping program -- because of its illegality. Alberto Gonzales, then Bush's legal counsel, and chief of staff Andrew Card confronted a seriously-ill Ashcroft to try to get him to re-authorize the program. He refused.
In fact, Ashcroft, Comey, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and other top DOJ officials threatened to resign over the issue.
I have to admit, I had almost overlooked that aspect of this story myself. But it is a key element. Congress is demanding to know what the telecoms actually did before it considers immunity. The Ashcroft hospital room story is a pretty stark reminder that whatever it was they did, it was illegal.
Addendum: Uh, oh. Democrats losing spine. Again.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives may soon resolve a stalemate that has blocked efforts to renew an anti-terrorism spy law and shield phone companies from lawsuits, a key Democrat said on Sunday.
Lawmakers may consider a compromise bill that would renew the law, which expired last month, and possibly grant some sort of protection to phone companies from lawsuits. [Full story]