Outsourcing the Death of the Bill of Rights

[babylonsister]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/6/94343/7271

Outsourcing the Death of the Bill of Rights
by kcr
Tue Nov 06, 2007 at 06:44:56 AM PST


Rumor has it that telecom amnesty is working its way back into the telecom bill in the Senate. People who support the amnesty like to claim that the companies should not be punished for doing what the government asked of them. That is a terrible notion.

First, it makes no sense. The law is not what any particular Administration says it is. Companies as powerful and profitable as the ones in question have more lawyers than you can count in a day. It is not unreasonable to expect that such well defended companies would have the legal brainpower to realize that they were, in fact, being asked ot break the law. And break it they did, for years past the immediate emergency, mooting any notion that they were just trying to be good citizens in a time of immediate crisis. They were trying to curry favor with the Administration in power, their obligation to respect the laws of the land be damned.

Which brings us to the real problem with telecom amnesty. These companies were perfectly positioned to defend both themselves and the rule of law form the overreach of the Bush Administration. If we let these companies off the hook, if we say to them, well, it's okay, the government asked you to, then we are setting a very dangerous precedent. One of the very few things that keeps corporations in line, outside of government regulation, is the notion that any particular bad act would be more costly to them in lost good will and at trial than profitable by itself. The amnesty would not only prevent future governments from criminally prosecuting them, but would also shut down ongoing civil cases. The public would never know the extent to which these companies betrayed thier fellow citizens and their would be no concrete punishment for that betrayal. If we allow that, then we have a created a situation where any Administration could ask a private company to violate any one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights for it and suffer no consequences, since it would be then established that no company should be punished for being a "good citizen" and doing as their government asks.

Your freedoms can be taken away by an employee of ATT just as easily as they can be taken away by a government employee. Telcom amnesty and the mainstreaming of the notion that a company should not be punished for doing what any given White House told them to do would essentially allow the outsourcing of the death of the Bill of Rights.

[truedelphi]

1. I agree w/ every word. But this is an era of the government and Big Telecom

And other Big Business wherein

They are pretty much one entity. Siamese-twins, as it were.

Until we change the corporate sponsored electoral politics, I don't think complaining about this is going to help.

And it is hard to boycott- when I moved in the spring, I boycotted AT&T by choosing a smaller phone service (mediaCom)

But that service doesn't work - even my landline drops calls. My neighbors does too. If sonmeone calls me who has ever ever blocked a call then they are given a robotic message that I have blocked THEIR call. So I'll probably be forced to calling AT & T and giving them back my business

PS I did a K&R

[babylonsister]

2. Ha! I switched my service from AT&T to Bell South and guess what?

I'm back with AT&T because they bought Bell South out. But this is the BS Dodd wants to filibuster, and has support from several candidates. Maybe it's not a done deal yet.

[truedelphi]

3. As an elder care provider, you just described my life with nursing agencies

I'd work at one that gave me bennies, then they'd be bought out and drop the bennies.

Then I would go to another, but they would be bought out by the first. Though one lucky time, a mid-sized entity w/o bennies got bought out by a larger one with bennies. I needed 4K worth of tests 2 months later, so I did get mine!

Banks are the same way. Which is very bad, because when one or two banks own all the others, then only one or two people are making decisions about the country's economy.

Boy, Citibank sucked -- but till last week the moneyed crowd didn't wanna know it.