FISA and Telco Immunity

The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retro-active immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

In what appears to be a growing tit-for-tat hat tip, thanks to Moldy Blue Cheese Curds for that Kennedy quote.

I wrote to our Senator Coleman asking him to respect the Constitution and refuse to grant retroactive immunity to phone companies who gave the government access to our private conservations (thank you Qwest for refusing to violate the law and telling the Bush Administration to piss off until it was in compliance with the law).

The Honorable Senator, who must have momentarily forgotten his oath to uphold said Constitution, replied that more or less, if the President asks someone to break the law and tells them they are not breaking the law, they should not be punished for breaking the law. Seems like kind of a bad precedent.

But hey, this is a time of war and the King should be free to act. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? The right to privacy is only something we should expect when, I dunno, buying weapons I guess.

Which brings me to - what the hell is up with people gunning down lots of people lately? Damn, reading the national news is like watching a damn western lately.