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December 30, 2007
Posted: 01:29 PM ET
The no-good-deed-goes-unpunished award goes to the Democratic leadership in Congress, which is trying to clear the way for the nation’s telephone companies to get sued for assisting the government’s anti-terrorism effort in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack. It has now been disclosed that when the country was reeling from the attack, government intelligence agencies notified the companies that the President had authorized a surveillance program to try to head off follow-up terrorist strikes.  They asked the communications companies to help, and most of them did. Now, the Democratic leadership is blocking the enactment of a permanent surveillance statute because the President wants to include a provision to grant the telephone companies immunity from lawsuits by people who say the surveillance violated their privacy. If they succeed in denying the companies immunity and the companies are hit with expensive lawsuits, it would remain to be seen what the response would be the next time the country is under attack and the President goes to corporate America for help. Congress will take up this matter in the New Year, and it is unclear how hard the Democrats will fight to keep the companies vulnerable to lawsuits. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are heavy financial donors to the Democratic Party, but there may be limits to how much heat the Party is willing to take to uphold the right to sue these companies. Somehow it seems unlikely that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would relish including in their list of accomplishments upholding the right of the trial lawyers to sue companies who responded to the President’s plea for help when the nation was under attack. – Fred Graham Filed under: Fred Graham |
 
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