Intellectual Property Law

McCain Campaign: Telecom Amnesty Requires Hearings and Apologies for Spying

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

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- As president, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain would not support immunity for the telecoms that aided the Bush administration's warrantless spying program, unless there were revealing Congressional hearings and heartfelt repentance from those telephone and internet companies, a campaign surrogate said Wednesday.

The remarks from Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign and a Time Warner vice president, represent a big change on the issue for McCain, who voted in February to keep immunity in the Senate spying bill. Fish was careful to say, however, that he was answering a double-hypothetical question -? if McCain wins, and if the issue is still alive in 2009.

"First, we need to be explicit we are not talking about granting indulgences," Fish said, clarifying that he meant forgiveness must be matched with repentance.

"There would need to be hearings to find out what actually happened and what harms actually occurred," Fish said, adding that immunity would need to be coupled with clear rules to make sure private records would be protected in future.

Fish was speaking as an official campaign surrogate, alongside Daniel Weitzner of MIT, who appeared for Barack Obama, at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in New Haven, Connecticut on Wednesday.

The House and Senate remain deadlocked on measures to expand the government's spying authority, and the chief bone of contention is the question of whether to free telecoms that helped the Bush administration's secret, warrantless targeting of Americans. They are facing about 40 federal lawsuits accusing them of illegally spying on Americans.

Daniel Weitzner, an MIT research scientist who has been advising Sen. Obama on his technology policy, said Obama's position is clear.

"Sen.Obama has voted against immunity, retroactively and prospectively," Weitzner said. "Sen. Obama has supported all along that when government surveillance techniques are used that there must be real meaningful oversight and real checks and balances."

While Weitzner did note that McCain did not vote against immunity, he gracefully admitted that the votes were "complicated."

That conciliatory note was emblematic of the two-hour discussion about the two leading candidates' technology policies, which never lapsed into a point scoring debate.

On issues such as privacy and net neutrality, Fish made clear that McCain is skeptical of wide-ranging legislation. Instead, he prefers to have market forces shape corporate behavior, and have regulatory groups like the Federal Trade Commission use their power to quickly and forcefully stop anti-competitive practices.

While Weitzner did not call for broad legislation, he questioned whether a hands-off government policy would maintain an open network.

"We don't say lets just see what kind of roads the market makes," Weitzer said.

McCain also supports an open and neutral network, according to Fish, but is wary of regulations that could backfire.

See Also:

• Senate Keeps Telecom Spying Immunity
• Is Retroactive Telecom Immunity Unconstitutional?
• House Democrats Stand Up To Bush, Refuse to Rubber Stamp Domestic Spying
• McCain Campaign Pioneers A First: Courting Lefty Bloggers
• Democrats Launch McCainpedia, An Attack Site Masquerading As A Wiki

Full post as published by Threat Level on May 21, 2008 (boomark / email).