In brief remarks this morning on the
House’s proposed FISA legislation, President Bush indicated his
opposition to the RESTORE Act. The New York Times reported: “The Bush administration,
urged by the telecommunication industry, is pushing hard for Congress to include immunity for past actions in any package to protect them from a series of civil suits.” This morning, Bush delivered. He said any legislative fix “must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks.”
|Watch it:[br />
The Restore Act
does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies that cooperated with the administration’s warrantless surveillance. As Reason magazine’s Julian Sanchez has noted, “(I)f they’re immune from liability after the fact, then they have no motivation to
do anything but comply (with the administration’s demands).”
UPDATE: More from
Broadband Reports.
War crimes