Intellectual Property Law

McCain Campaign Remarks Could 'Disrupt' Spy Bill Talks, Post Says

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

Has Senator and de facto Republican presidential nominee John McCain changed his stance on telecom amnesty and if so, did he undermine the President and Republican party's push to dismiss citizens' privacy lawsuits against companies like AT&T?

That's the question the Washington Post tackled Thursday, following on THREAT LEVEL's reporting last week about comments made by a top McCain lawyer at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference. At the conference, Chuck Fish, a full-time volunteer for McCain and former Time Warner vice president, said that as president, McCain would require hearings that explained what the telecoms actually did before granting retroactive legal cover for their activities. Audio of the presentation (.wav)

That's a stark departure from McCain's previous support for telecom immunity. Two days after Fish's remarks, when liberal blogs picked up the THREAT LEVEL story, McCain's campaign walked back from Fish's statements, saying McCain had already learned enough about the companies' participation to support amnesty now.

Still, the Post says the remarks might reverberate.

The comments -- first noted last week on the blog of the technology magazine Wired -- contradict McCain's voting record, and they are almost certain to disrupt negotiations between Democratic leaders in Congress and Bush administration officials, who are seeking blanket immunity for the telecoms' cooperation with the surveillance program. [...]

Bush and congressional Republicans are trying to resurrect warrantless surveillance legislation, which lapsed in March, albeit under somewhat stricter supervision. But the administration argues that phone companies will participate only if they receive blanket immunity not only for future surveillance but for cooperation that started after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Supporters of immunity say the companies acted in good faith that their assistance was lawful.

In February, when the issue reached the Senate, McCain voted repeatedly against failed Democratic efforts to strip out the legislation's retroactive immunity provisions or limit the surveillance program's reach. He then voted for the bill's passage.

Fish's comments and the campaign's responses indicate that McCain appears to be taking a new stance that undermines the GOP's negotiating position, as well as the party's efforts to label Democrats as weak on terrorism.

I'm not so sure McCain has changed his position, but I am not privy to the back room negotiations over the bill right now.

Is telecom amnesty really going to become a bigger campaign issue? THREAT LEVEL remains skeptical, though it could if Congress tackles the issue again seriously as they have been threatening to do.

Washington Post: For McCain, A Switch On Telecom Immunity?

Full post as published by Threat Level on May 29, 2008 (boomark / email).