World News | Forum | UK News | USA News | Global News | Political News | Sci-Tech News | War & Terrorism News | Sports News | Multimedia | Set Homepage

Translate:

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

Despite the Bush administration’s firm stance on granting immunity to telephone companies, Congress hopes to raise the issue again to find out exactly what the phone companies provided to the government, reports Ars Technica.

The Bush administration has asked for retroactive immunity for telephone companies regardless of the legality of their actions. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, intends to hold hearings in order to find out find out exactly what these companies might have done.

“Before granting immunity for any activities, it will be important to review what those activities were, what was the legal basis for those activities, and what would be the impact of a grant of immunity,” Reyes said in a statement.

Under consideration are whether the NSA’s surveillance program was legal and if the laws need to be changed to allow intelligence agencies to better track terrorist communications.

Reyes says that he “will not prejudge the outcome of these hearings,” but the fact that he has serious questions about the retroactive immunity suggests that he won’t be easily persuaded to sign off on it. That’s good news for organizations like the EFF, which is embroiled in a lawsuit with AT&T over the issue. Even if the administration doesn’t get its way in Congress, it will continue to push for the courts to throw out such cases on the grounds that they will expose state secrets. Thus far, though, the combined case against the telephone companies remains alive.

Copyright © 2006 CNET Networks, Inc.

Have Your Say: Congress doubtful about immunity for phone companies in NSA spying
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report here.

RSS TrackBack URL

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Related News

• Bush administration forced to turn over spying docs
• Telecoms Backing Off Illegal Wiretaps for Bush
• FBI head: Give telcos immunity
• VIDEO: Bush Pardon’s HIMSELF Against Warcrimes
• White House says phone wiretaps back on “for now”

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 6:34 am and is filed under Political News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Loading ...

ADVERTISEMENTS

SITE MAPS

7/7 Activism News Afghanistan Alternative-Energy Art Barack Obama BBC Big-Brother Bilderberg Biometrics Bush CCTV Censorship CIA Climate-Change Cover-Up Cults Culture Database-State David-Hicks David-Ray-Griffin Debt Democrats Demos Drugs Education Entertainment Environmental News EU False-Flag FBI Fraud Free-Speech Freemasons G8 Global-News Global-News Globalization Guantanamo Health-News History ID-Cards Internet Iran Iraq Israel John McCain Law Marches Media News MI5 MI6 Microsoft Military MoD Money Music NASA Neocons New World Order NSA Oil Pakistan Podcast Police-State Political News Propaganda Reviews RFID RINF Rumsfeld Science Science & Technology News Secrecy Security Slavery Space Sports Spy Spying Stephen-Lendman Technology Terrorism Tony-Blair Torture TV UK-News UN USA- USA-News Video Voting war War & Terrorism News Warfare Web Development News White-House Wolfowitz World_News Yahoo
2003 - 2005 Archives | 2005 - 2007 Archives | 2007 - 2008 Archives | Current Archives | Past Version