

Senate Approves Telco Immunity for Illegal Wiretaps - timr
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html

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mattmaroon
This is an interesting bill to me. On one hand, I hate the idea of these
wiretaps, and think they're one of a number of reasons for which Bush should
be impeached.

On the other hand, I think the phone companies need to be exonerated.
Corporations can't be expected to pick and choose when they cooperate with the
government, and they should never be penalized for doing so. We don't want to
create a system in which companies can be held liable for that. It will hinder
legitimate law enforcement, and create insurmountable legal bills for small
businesses asked to cooperate with government investigations.

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gills
The Bill of Rights does not secure the right to earn a profit. Every one of
these corporations had a choice between doing the right thing and doing the
easy thing.

A true patriot would fold the business before allowing it to be used to
infringe upon the rights of citizens.

We can blame Bush and we can blame Congress, but first we should blame
ourselves for letting it go this far.

~~~
mattmaroon
Folding the business because you think a government order is unethical would
land you in jail. When you run a publicly traded company, you have a legal
responsibility to represent your shareholders' financial interest.

If you want to be technical, the Bill of Rights does not secure the right to
use a phone without the government knowing who you call. In fact, it doesn't
even secure the right to privacy. It kind of flirts with the issue, but it's a
common misconception that it guarantees it.

Maybe I'm biased because I think patriotism is stupid (as Shaw said
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other
countries because you were born in it.") but if captains of industry folded
their corporations every time they perceived an ethical violation we'd have no
stock market left.

