You may or may not know that a bill is pending in the U.S. Congress in which telecom companies are seeking immunity from liability for cooperating with breaches of customers' privacy rights.  The law they're trying to get around is the 1986 Stored Communications Act.  The Act

"...forbids telephone companies and computer-service providers from giving the government records showing who customers had dialed or e-mailed without a warrant or court order. Because the law allows consumers to recover a minimum of $1,000 for each violation, AT&T and a handful of other companies could be on the hook for billions of dollars in civil liability, some experts in telecommunications law have said."

Seattle Times 

Turns out... the telecom industry can't claim they're seeking immunity for a hypothetical situation...

 The plain-spoken, bespectacled Klein, 62, said he may be the only person in the country in a position to discuss firsthand knowledge of an important aspect of the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. He is retired, so he isn't worried about losing his job. He did not have security clearance, and the documents in his possession were not classified, he said. He has no qualms about "turning in," as he put it, the company where he worked for 22 years until he retired in 2004.

"If they've done something massively illegal and unconstitutional -- well, they should suffer the consequences," Klein said. "It's not my place to feel bad for them. They made their bed, they have to lie in it. The ones who did [anything wrong], you can be sure, are high up in the company. Not the average Joes, who I enjoyed working with."

TPMMuckRacker.com (quoting from a Washington Post article)  [Read both of these]

I can't believe Congress is thinking about giving the telecom industry immunity for its criminal conduct.

And I can't believe this is America in 2007.  Every now and then it feels more like the Soviet Union, circa. 1952.

What have these neocons done to our country?  Are we so afraid of Saudi terrorists that we're willing to give up everything that makes this country great?

We deserve better. 

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