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

Translate:

Saturday, September 1st, 2007

The Bush administration wants the power to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that are slapped with privacy suits for cooperating with the White House’s controversial warrantless eavesdropping programme.The authority would effectively shut down dozens of lawsuits filed against telecommunications companies accused of helping set up the programme.

The vaguely worded proposal would shield any person who allegedly provided information, infrastructure or “any other form of assistance” to the intelligence agencies after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

It covers any classified communications activity intended to protect the country from terrorism.

Republicans say immunity is necessary to protect the companies that responded to legal presidential orders to thwart terrorists in the years after 9/11. Yet some Democrats fear the administration’s proposal would do much more than advertised, potentially protecting anyone who gave broad categories of aid to the government as part of a spy programme that monitors communications.

Because the administration does not want to identify which companies participated in the operations, it is asking Congress to let the attorney-general intervene on behalf of any person or company accused of participating in the surveillance work, whether or not they actually did, two senior justice department officials said.

More than a dozen government officials interviewed for this story spoke on condition they not be identified because sensitive negotiations with Congress are ongoing.

One of the officials said the defendants in suits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union — Verizon and AT&T — would be the key beneficiaries of the proposed legislation.

Both companies are a central part of the US communications grid, running networks that transmit both telephone calls and emails. (AP)

Have Your Say: Bush seeks immunity for telecom firms
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Mail (will not be published) (required)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

• Firms await verdict on £2 billion ID cards project
• Congress doubtful about immunity for phone companies in NSA spying
• US power to spy on foreigners gets nod
• Democrats Offer Compromise Plan On Surveillance
• Sweden passes ‘Big Brother bill’

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 5:36 pm and is filed under Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights 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 Afghanistan Alternative-Energy Art BBC Big-Brother Bilderberg Biometrics Bush 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 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 Propaganda RFID RINF Rumsfeld Science Science & Technology News Secrecy Security Slavery Space Sports Spying Stephen-Lendman Technology Terrorism Tony-Blair Torture TV UK-News UN USA- USA-News Video Voting war War & Terrorism News Warfare White-House Wolfowitz World-News Yahoo
2003 - 2005 Archives | 2005 - 2007 Archives | 2007 - 2008 Archives | Current Archives | Past Version