Legal Commentary

Of course telecom companies will be less likely to cooperate in the future with an Administration whose legal advice has proven to be so unreliable. But giving them immunity whenever they recieve bad advice from the White House gives the White House no incentives to stay within the boundaries of the law. As I have pointed out before immunity provisions make it much easier for an untrustworthy White House to cover up its misconduct. In essence, the President wants legal assurances that nobody will have incentives to reveal what his subordinates did and what he asked the telecom companies to do. Retroactive immunity helps insure that these issues will never come to light in any court of law. After the experience of this Administration, do we really think this is a good idea?

Full post as published by Balkinization on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).