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Is there a price too high?
by Kagro X Thu Jun 05, 2008
Among the latest round of stories indicating that Congressional Democrats may once again be on the verge of collapse on FISA is this one in The Hill.
We've been over and over this ground, noting that every time around the block another shoe drops, and there are more and more reasons not to trust the "administration" to deal squarely on anything, much less the issue of covering up their own illegal spying.
And although there's really nothing new about the Republican position in this article, I was struck by the particular wording in this one. It's probably been said exactly this way before, too, but it just never hit me the same way:
Republicans say without the protections, companies will not be willing to help protect the country from terrorist attacks.
Can I just ask you something, as an American and a human being?
Why the hell would anyone give a damn about helping a person or a company that would let the country be attacked by terrorists?
I mean, what would you do if you were in a position to actually prevent a terrorist attack? What price would you pay to make sure it didn't happen?
Because the telecoms want the equivalent of cash money down to do this.
Is your Senator or Representative voting to give it to them?
Imagine what they'd call you or me if it fell to us to prevent a terrorist attack, and we demanded money up front. Hell, imagine what they'd call you or me if we said what these companies claim their position is -- "Nice country you got there. Be a shame if anything should, you know, happen to it..."
You or I would be arrested for extortion. Hell, we'd probably be arrested on suspicion of being terrorists ourselves.
But a few checks placed in the right pockets, and bingo! Through the magic of capitalism, the corporate bottom line is now worth more than good, old fashioned patriotism.
AT&T would rather see you die than have to pay legal fees.
Seriously. The position that the telecoms and the Republicans are actually taking here boils down to this: they are looking you in the eye and arguing with a straight face that if Congress does not step in to protect their cash reserves, they will sooner permit terrorists to attack the country than step in to prevent it.
The most generous explanation for what the telecoms are doing is that fear of the lawsuit now outweighs their sense of duty to country. A closer description, though, is that they have become terrorists themselves.
And the Republicans and their Blue Dog co-conspirators can't wait to reward that. They literally fear not knuckling under to it.
You just want your constitutional freedoms protected. But you're getting no help from Congress. In fact, you're getting lectures about how you "just don't understand." Meanwhile, the telecoms are threatening to let terrorists attack the country unimpeded if we don't lower their legal bills, and Congress can't jump high enough or through enough hoops.
Mind you, nobody with a lick of sense truly believes that the telecom companies are actually going to pocket billions of dollars worth of federal contracts and then still sell us out to the terrorists if we don't also pick up their legal tab. But that's what their argument actually means. That's what they're threatening.
Licks of sense must be hard to come by these days, though, because as dumb as it is, a near majority of the United States Congress appears to believe every word of it.
Is your Senator or Representative one of these addle-brained idiots?
Maybe you should call and find out.
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