-- Forwarded Message
From: Sardar sar...@spiritone.com
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:19:18 -0700
To: Sardar recon1968br...@yahoo.com
Subject: Report: US considers phone companies 'arm of government'
Report: US considers phone companies 'arm of government'
Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Sunday, Oct 11th, 2009
The US government doesn't have to reveal information about phone companies
that may have spied illegally on Americans because those phone companies are
an arm of the government, the US Justice Department argued in a recent
court case.
In a lawsuit over the Bush administration's decision to give immunity to
telecom companies over its warrantless wiretapping program, the Justice
Department argued that it doesn't have to publicly reveal what it discussed
with the phone companies because those discussions were inter-agency
communications, explains Ryan Singel at Wired.
He cites a passage from a court document in which the department argues that
the communications between the agencies and telecommunications companies
regarding the immunity provisions of the proposed legislation have been
regarded as intra-agency..
Singel was reporting on privacy watchdog group Electronic Frontier
Foundation's two-year-long legal battle with the DoJ over access to those
communications. In 2008, the Bush administration passed a law granting
reotroactive immunity to phone companies that had participated in the
administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
After news reports in 2007 suggested that the phone companies had lobbied
the government to have those protections put in place, the EFF launched a
freedom-of-information request to have discussions between the Justice
Department and the phone companies made public. When the government refused,
the EFF took the matter to court.
On September 24, a US District Court judge sided with the EFF and ordered
the government to release more records about the lobbying campaign to
provide immunity to the telecommunications giants that participated in the
NSA's warrantless surveillance program, the EFF stated.
The judge gave the Justice Department until last Friday to hand over the
documents. But, late on Thursday, the government appealed for a 30-day stay
of the judge's order. That order was refused, but the judge has delayed any
further decisions on the case for another week.
CONGRESS 'A MERE APPENDAGE' OF EXECUTIVE BRANCH?
Blogger Marcy Wheeler at FireDogLake says there are more interesting
revelations about the government's attitude towards constitutional powers in
the delay request it filed last week.
The language attempting to protect agency discussions with Congress
describe Congress as a mere appendage to the executive branch which did not,
in 2008, have its own distinct constitutional interest in legislation
concerning matters in which the executive branch had been found to have
flouted duly passed laws, Wheeler writes. She cites the following passages
from the court filing (PDF):
Given the purpose and role of the communications in the agencies' own
deliberations, the agencies have regarded their communications with Congress
as intra-agency documents under the foregoing lines of authority..
.In providing the agencies with information and views about legislative
options for use in the development of the Executive Branch's own legislative
position, Congress was participating in a common effort with the Executive
Branch to advance the public interest.
It is a fascinating comment on the state of separation of powers that
Congress would be described by the executive branch as a mere appendage to
the executive branch, Wheeler wrote.
She also argued that there is a fundamental contradiction in the government
claiming that companies it contracted to do (potentially illegal) work would
be treated as government agencies:
These were telecoms lobbying! Lobbying about programs that brought them
and will continue to bring them ongoing business. But by treating the
telecoms as agencies for this negotiation, the Obama Administration . is
treating this lobbying as part of the task that telecoms have been
contracted to do by the government. We are paying telecom contractors . to
lobby our government and elected representatives (who are, at this point,
just an appendage to the executive branch anyway) to make sure they continue
to get that contracted work.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/report-us-considers-phone-companies-%e2%80%98arm-o
f-government%e2%80%99.html
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