Politics

Breaking the Law in the Name of the "War on Terror" = Not Breaking The Law

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Bush calls for vital action to protect the American Way of Life:

President Bush plunged directly into the campaign to save his warrantless wiretapping program, arguing Wednesday that telecommunications firms that cooperated with spy agencies should be granted retroactive immunity from possible prosecution.
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"The need for action is clear," Bush said. "Unless the reforms in the act are made permanent, our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country."

Bush argued that telecommunications companies that provided data to the government under the program should be granted immunity from prosecution in the event that their actions are determined to have been illegal.
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"It's particularly important for Congress to provide meaningful liability protection to those companies now facing multibillion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks," Bush said.

Full story from LA Times.

Jacob Sullum from last month on this topic of Bush and the telecom companies putting their lives on the line to wiretap their customers, in which he observed:

the administration….feels duty-bound to withhold information when it might be useful to critics who oppose President Bush's anti-terrorism policies, since those policies are necessary to protect national security. But the very same information can—indeed, should—be released at a more opportune time, when it will help the president pursue his policies.