Why does Harry Reid heart the Telecom’s?
October 21, 2007 by Dusty
Money of course..lots and lots of it. From Glen Greenwald’s column at Salon:
Then again, AT&T is the second largest contributor overall to officials in Congress, having poured into the Beltway a total of $38 million in campaign contributions for the election cycles for which these records are available. Verizon is in 33rd place with over $15 million; BellSouth in 39th place with with over $14 million; Time Warner in 28th place with $17 million; and MCI in 83rd place with $8 million. The Communications Workers of America, which lobbies for all sorts of pro-telecom legislation, is in 13th place with close to $25 million. That’s $118 million of telecom money poured into the coffers of members of Congress, and the real total is much higher since this is only from the top 100. And now Congress, on a more or less bipartisan basis, is passing a law declaring that this industry shall be completely immune from any consequences even if they are found to have broken multiple federal laws in allowing illegal spying on all of their customers.
Now, it all makes sense doesn’t it? Methinks the majority of elected Dem’s are really just Rethugs in sheeple’s clothing.
Tags: Telecoms, Harry Reid, lobbying money
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Mr. Bush says the law should give immunity to communications companies that gave data to the government over the last five years without a court order. He says they should not be punished for helping to protect America, but what Mr. Bush really wants is to avoid lawsuits that could uncover the extent of the illegal spying he authorized before/after 9/11.
Currently pending before the 9th Circuit is Hepting v. AT&T, a class action suit filed in January 2006 against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in electronically eavesdropping on the communications of millions of Americans, both domestic and overseas, as these messages pass through secret NSA surveillance rooms hidden deep inside major AT&T hubs in the U.S. Now BushCo is attempting to use Congress as a backdoor to block the suit. If AT&T is given such sweeping retroactive legal immunity by Congress, then the plaintiff in Hepting, as well as in as many as 54 other suits now pending against AT&T, will no longer have a legal cause of action.
am
Good for Chris Dodd for standing up on this FISA issue. I can’t believe “retroactive immunity” is even something the congress is allowed to grant. The very fact that Reid hasn’t immediately and loudly jumped on board with Sen. Dodd is mystifying to me. It makes me wonder if Reid is being “leaned on” by the telecom giants, who may in fact have digital evidence of some horrific images that Mr. Reid may have downloaded to his home computer late one night in a desperate moment of perverted weakness. It would be nice if anyone in the media paid some attention to Dodd’s hold. Anyone. Of course, it would be nicer if Reid paid some attention to it, as well.
[...] Dusty placed an observative post today on Why does Harry Reid heart the Telecomâ??s?.Here’s a quick excerpt:Money of course..lots and lots of it. From Glen Greenwald’s column at Salon: Then again, AT&T is the second largest contributor overall to officials in Congress, having poured into the Beltway a total of $38 million in campaign … [...]
Harry Reid himself took $22,000 in contributions from AT&T between 2001-2006. OpenSecrets reports that he also owns between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of stock in Dow Jones U.S. Telecommunications Sector Index Fund, the largest holdings of which are AT&T and Verizon.
Reid has a stake in the telecoms, but this doesn’t come close to the “Duke” Cummingham level of million/near-million dollar bribery. That’s why I think that their has to be more to this story. Blackmail by the White House is but one possibility - it needs to dirty, illegal, corrupt and potentially career-ending.