Telco immunity and why it's a crock

Quite possibly the most coherent post I've read on the authorization of NSA wiretapping:

From The Next Hurrah, via GG:

The dodge on retroactive immunity.

Essentially the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is saying that the Telcos get immunity if they were given assurances that what they were doing was legal - so long as they were given certification by the US Attorney General or "certain other officers" that no warrant was necessary.

The SSCI then says that the Telcos were given these certifications by the USAG with the exception of a period of under sixty days, which was certified by the Counsel to the President, Alberto Gonzales.

The problem is, Counsel to the President is not one of the offices identified by US Code as being allowed to certify that a warrant is not needed.

Oops.

One wonders if the Telcos were told that the reason that Counsel to the President was authorizing these and not the USAG, was because the USAG thought what was going on was not legal.

That'd sure put a fire under the administration to give the Telcos a get-out-of-litigation free card, since the administration is the one who asked them to do something without legal cover.

Good faith shouldn't save the Telcos. They have legal departments that are supposed to C their collective A on even minor issues. You'd have to believe they suited up for reviewing their client's participation in a nationwide wiretapping program.

"Because the President asked me to," just doesn't cut it.