Bush and the Phone Companies: Partners in Crime

By Timothy Karr, Huffington Post. Posted October 15, 2007.

Phone companies have opened a new front in their campaign against the free flow of information. This time they've found a powerful ally in the White House.

AT&T and Verizon have already shown their disdain for free speech and Net Neutrality, and their eagerness to let government spies lurk on our phone calls. Now, their lobbyists have teamed with President George Bush to strong arm Congress into granting full immunity for a disturbing array of illegal and unconstitutional acts.

A handful of legislators, though, are holding out against the pressure, which is no small feat given the extreme powers behind the amnesty grab.

Money, Politics and the Law

Both Verizon and AT&T spend hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign contributions, congressional junkets, Washington lawyers, lobbyists and PR campaigns.

Much of this political clout is now being focused on one issue: elevating phone companies above the law so they can invade our homes via phone lines, the Internet and other modern communications -- acting as the ultimate gatekeepers against the free flow of information.

Earlier this year they were caught handing over customer phone records to the National Security Agency (NSA). The phone companies first denied it and then started a quiet campaign with the White House to gain immunity from any lawsuits.

The campaign got a lot louder on Wednesday, when President Bush told reporters that he would veto a new FISA eavesdropping bill that doesn't grant retroactive immunity to the phone companies.

Thus far, about 40 active lawsuits name several telecommunications companies for alleged violations of wiretapping laws. Other suits are in the works, pending this legislation.

A Few Brave Congress People

Despite the intense pressure from lobbyists and the White House, Americans are telling Congress that they're fed up with the abuse.

On Wednesday, some of our representatives showed that they were listening. The House Judiciary Committee voted down an amendment to the FISA bill, which would have granted legal immunity to Verizon and AT&T for an as yet unspecified list of legal violations. (The White House and NSA have thus far refused to reveal to us just how far the phone company legal abuse has gone).

See more stories tagged with: wiretapping, fisa, telecoms, immunity

Timothy Karr is the author of MediaCitizen, a weblog about the future of America's media. He is the campaign director of Free Press. From September 2003 through February 2005, Karr was executive director of MediaChannel.org and Media for Democracy.

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