Senate grants immunity on wiretap lawsuits: Telecom giants off the hook

The Senate passed legislation giving parent companies of the three largest mobile-phone carriers retroactive immunity from dozens of privacy lawsuits triggered by a Bush administration warrantless wiretap program secretly launched soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
As a result of the chamber’s 68-29 bipartisan vote to extend the reach of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, chances improved that AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. could be spared a potentially huge financial hit by lawsuits at a time the companies are investing heavily in their growth-engine wireless units. President Bush wants liability protection – retroactive and going forward – for telecom carriers, and is ready to veto any bill lacking such a provision. Moreover, the president is unwilling to agree to an extension of a stop-gap surveillance bill that was about to expire.
“In order to be able to discover enemy – the enemy’s plans, we need the cooperation of telecommunication companies,” Bush stated. “If these companies are subjected to lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars, they won’t participate; they won’t help us; they won’t help protect America. Liability protection is critical to securing the private sector’s cooperation with our intelligence efforts.”
Kevin Martin, chairman of the GOP-led Federal Communications Commission, has faced Democratic criticism over warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.
The measure passed by the Senate was a product of the intelligence committee, chaired by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). AT&T and Verizon accounted for more than $68,000 in campaign contributions to Rockefeller between 2003 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Besides the privacy lawsuits, there has been litigation to unearth public documents that could reveal the extent of lobbying by the well-heeled telecom industry on wiretap liability protection.
Though the FISA bill garnered bipartisan support, key Democrats – including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) – opposed the bill because, among other things, the retroactive immunity provision for telecom carriers.
“The administration insists on avoiding accountability by including blanket retroactive immunity in their bill. .This administration violated FISA by conducting warrantless surveillance for more than five years,” said Leahy. “They got caught, and if they had not, they would probably still be doing it. When the public found out about the president’s illegal surveillance of Americans, the administration and the telephone companies were sued by citizens who believe their privacy and their rights were violated. Now, the administration is trying to get this Congress to terminate those lawsuits in order to insulate itself from accountability. I will not support such an end run around accountability.”