AT&T and Verizon Have Money In The Jukebox-So Dance Boys... Dance!
As the temporary FISA replacement bill, the Protect America Act, nears the end of its 15 day extension (Feb 16), the RNC is ramping up its campaign of utterly false assertions about the nature of the debate at hand, those engaged in it, and who is behind the lawsuits currently pending against the Telecoms.
This is misdirection; if your looking for a real outrage three words come immediately to mind-Conflict of Interest. There are those involved in briefing the Senate and some who are involved directly in shaping the new FISA bill who have hidden reasons to pump up manufactured National Security fears. They offer counsel about the danger of holding telecommunications companies accountable for their complicity in the illegal warrantless Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), but they have something other than the People's interests at heart. On this point, two people in particular leap to mind:
First we have Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who's son, Marc Mukasey is a in charge of defending telecommunications giant Verizon as part of his duties as head of the White Collar Crimes Division at the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani. He is defending Verizon in cases involving extra-legal participation in the NSA's TSP. On one side of the legal coin you have the father providing Congressional council intended to convince legislators to stop lawsuits against telecoms in their tracks, and on the other you have a son whose clients desperately want to avoid such lawsuits. Could it be any more obvious? That this kind of unmistakable conflict of interest hasn't gotten more attention is nothing short of amazing.
Second we have Senator Jay Rockefeller, the democratic Senator who oversaw the writing of the telecom immunity provisions in s2248 as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Here we have as blatant a case of the "fox guarding the hen house" as one could hope to find in Congress. According to Josh Zaharoff and our friends at Common Cause:
"Mr. Rockefeller received little in the way of contributions from AT&T or Verizon executives before this year, reporting $4,050 from 2002 through 2006. From last March to June, he collected a total of $42,850 from executives at the two companies."As the temporary FISA replacement bill, the Protect America Act, nears the end of its 15 day extension (Feb 16), the RNC is ramping up its campaign of utterly false assertions about the nature of the debate at hand, those engaged in it, and who is behind the lawsuits currently pending against the Telecoms.
This is misdirection; if your looking for a real outrage three words come immediately to mind-Conflict of Interest. There are those involved in briefing the Senate and some who are involved directly in shaping the new FISA bill who have hidden reasons to pump up manufactured National Security fears. They offer counsel about the danger of holding telecommunications companies accountable for their complicity in the illegal warrantless Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), but they have something other than the People's interests at heart. On this point, two people in particular leap to mind:
First we have Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who's son, Marc Mukasey is a in charge of defending telecommunications giant Verizon as part of his duties as head of the White Collar Crimes Division at the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani. He is defending Verizon in cases involving extra-legal participation in the NSA's TSP. On one side of the legal coin you have the father providing Congressional council intended to convince legislators to stop lawsuits against telecoms in their tracks, and on the other you have a son whose clients desperately want to avoid such lawsuits. Could it be any more obvious? That this kind of unmistakable conflict of interest hasn't gotten more attention is nothing short of amazing.
Second we have Senator Jay Rockefeller, the democratic Senator who oversaw the writing of the telecom immunity provisions in s2248 as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Here we have as blatant a case of the "fox guarding the hen house" as one could hope to find in Congress. According to Josh Zaharoff and our friends at Common Cause:
Any argument that Rockefeller isn't in the pockets of the telecoms flies in the face of reason. These are businesses, and they make business decisions and deals, not charitable contributions. When they suddenly and radically change the amount of money contributed to any politician, it is with the implicit (perhaps explicit in this case) expectation that there will be a substantial return on investment. Thus far Mr. Rockefeller hasn't disappointed.
Of course there are malfeasances afoot here other than these two cases of familial and financial conflict of interest. There are those in this administration who sit with crossed fingers, sweat glistened brows, clenched jaws, and worn prayer beads, hoping against hope that their illegal activities remain shrouded in the cloud of fear they continue to whip up. Eventually that cloud will settle, and reason will prevail. Let's just hope it doesn't take decades (or longer), a relentless cadre of reporters and historians, and a slew of Freedom Of Information applications to bring to light the misdeeds this latest generation of power-hungry and opportunistic semi-warrior ideologues.
For now, those who still hold the Constitution dear can only watch as this god-awful dance plays itself out, and hope that these violations don't serve as precedent for some future administration bent on using tragedy as pretext.
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