Intellectual Property Law

Telecom Amnesty Compromise in Works, Reyes Says

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes says the House and Senate may come to a compromise this week over whether to grant amnesty to telecoms that aided Bush's secret, domestic wiretapping program.

The Texas Democrat says he's seen some of the wiretapping documents and talked with the telecoms, and is open now to the idea of giving the companies immunity.

Companies such as Verizon and AT&T are facing civil suits in federal court alleging that they turned over millions of Americans phone records to the government for data-mining, and that they helped with warrantless surveillance of phone and internet communications inside the United States.

Speaking on CNN's Late Edition on Sunday, Reyes said:

We are talking to the representatives from the communications companies because if we're going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and we want to understand what it is that we're giving immunity for. I have an open mind about that.

Reyes is one of four Democratic committee chairmen who, in an Op-Ed last week, blasted the Administration's dire rhetoric about the expiration of a temporary spying law.

At issue is a bill that would let the nation's spies install wiretaps inside the United States, with little court oversight, so long as they didn't target individual Americans specifically. Both the House and Senate are poised to hand over that power, but Bush says he won't sign any bill that doesn't give amnesty to telecoms for their past actions. The Senate bill includes that, but the House's version does not.

Any compromise on amnesty will likely deal a crippling blow to civil liberties groups that are seeking to learn more about how the five-year long warrantless wiretapping program worked and to use their lawsuits as a way to persuade phone and internet companies to always insist on court orders when turning over records and facilities to the government.

See Also:

• Republicans Shun Wiretap and Telecom Amnesty Compromise Meeting
• Senate Approves Telco Amnesty, Legalizes Bush's Secret Spy Program
• House Democrats Stand Up To Bush, Refuse to Rubber Stamp Domestic Spying
• House Rejects Spy Bill Extension, Setting Stage for Adoption of Senate Bill

Full post as published by Threat Level on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).